In the hardwood struggle for king of the hill in the SPSL 2A Friday evening at Sumner High’s packed gymnasium, between the 9-1 Spartans and 9-1 Warriors of Clover Park, it was the Warriors who emerged as the 72-65 victor, as SHS committed way too many turnovers against a stingy and opportunistic Clover Park defense and the Warriors’ starting sophomore guard combo of Ahmaad Rorie and David Crisp, combined to score nearly 50 points.
During the majority of the entertaining nail biter neither squad led by more than two points, but with two minutes remaining in the wild, see-saw affair, the Warriors opened up their largest advantage of the contest at 64-58. From then on the Sparts were forced to foul in order slow the sands of time and the visitors cashed in from the charity stripe hitting 6-of-8 attempts from the line to salt away the crucial triumph that may well have assured them of the league crown for the second straight year.
There was no lack of scoring by the Spartans as four of the starting five managed double figures. While the DeVries twins Dan and Dave teamed up for 35 points, senior spires Joey Kendall and Zeb Glissmeyer notched 14 and 13 points respectively.
Meanwhile, by virtue of Sumner’s second league loss of the SPSL 2A campaign to Clover Park, 9-2 White River slipped into a second place tie with Sumner when it traveled to Franklin Pierce’s facility Friday and came away with a 67-57 conquest over the Redbird roundballers, thanks to the vaunted backcourt trio of Billy Kiel (16), Jason Tyler (14) and Alex Sayler (10 points) combining for well over half of the visiting Hornets’ total.
In SPSL 3A boys hoops Enumclaw hosted Decatur, eventually losing to the front-running Gators 67-58 and Bonney Lake continued to struggle as the Panthers trekked to Lakes High’s gym and were blown out by the heavily favored Lancers 74-47.
Enumclaw surprisingly held the upper hand throughout the first 16 minutes of its game with DHS and in fact was out front at intermission 30-25. Despite getting 15 points apiece from junior guard Tony Chynoweth and sophomore post Drake Rademacher though, the Hornets were outscored in the second half 42 to 28.
In the lopsided Bonney Lake vs. Lakes encounter, the Lancers were rude hosts as they allowed the black and teal of BLHS a paltry four points in the second stanza, outscoring the Panther cagers 39-20 in the first half. While they certainly had their hands full against Lakes, the Panthers appeared to have a considerable amount of success in the low post as Mikey Berger and Mike Gould seemed to flourish in the paint all night long and each were rewarded with fine performances as they racked up 17 points apiece.
In girls basketball, Sumner went a perfect 3-for-3 on the week, beating Washington and Fife on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, then making it a clean sweep, culminating a busy week on Friday when the Lady Sparts traveled to Clover Park’s gym and thrashed the Warrior gals 61-46, behind the combined 42 points between the fabulous freshmen tandem of Jaime Lange’s 26 and Anna Hurd 16 points.
Meanwhile Bonney Lake’s ladies welcomed Lakes to the Panther Den, but could not hold off an athletic Lancer crew losing 56-48. An active Lakes squad bolted out to a 30-23 halftime advantage and was never bested, despite a fourth period surge by the Panther girls, led by the 22 points of junior forward Mekenzie Voellger, who enjoyed her second 20 plus point effort of the week.
Also in Plateau girls hoops, 10-1 White River maintained its first place tie with Eatonville, as it was triumphant in a low scoring 37-28 road tilt in Franklin Pierce’s building that featured WRHS’s Cassidy France and Kennedy Hobert recording 14 points each, while no one else for either squad could put together double figure scoring.
In the SPSL 3A Enumclaw’s girls continued their winning ways as EHS used double figure scoring from Danielle Saltarelli and Calli Remitz to trounce Peninsula 52-32.
