Carl Howell jokes with his Tacoma Community College basketball assistants that this season’s team is his most dysfunctional group.
“But I love them,” Howell said. “And we are starting to get better.”
Translation: The No. 6 Titans are starting to figure out how to unleash Howell’s brand of merciless defense.
After two close cross-town rivalry games last season, visiting TCC hung a bad one on Pierce College – a 79-62 verdict – in Northwest Athletic Association of Community College West Division men’s action in Lakewood.
Mark McLaughlin led four Titans players in double figures with 21 points. Demetrius Smith added 17 for TCC (8-3 overall, 1-0 conference). John Palmer led the Raiders (9-4, 1-1) with 18.
The game was decided in three long stretches. First came TCC’s 17-2 run to start the game over the first 61/2 minutes.
Pierce settled down briefly, and countered behind Palmer, who scored seven points in a 1:57 span. His two free throws capped a 15-4 run, and pulled the Raiders to four points behind, at 21-17.
But Damani Coley came off the bench to hit a pair of 3-pointers for TCC – the first one ended Pierce’s scoring charge. Josh Lord hit another one from the corner, and the Titans’ supply of offense was plenty.
But their defense was spectacular.
“We had not done this to somebody yet with our defense,” Howell said, “so I was surprised.”
Pierce scored just two points in the final 9:21 of the first half – on a Chris Hyslop bucket – missing 14 of 15 shots. The Raiders committed seven turnovers – in every possible way. The last came on Palmer’s offensive charge with three seconds to go.
“It was chaos. We were moving around. We were flying around, denying passes and boxing people out and making sure we had a body on somebody,” Smith said. “We wanted to make sure to punch them in the mouth coming out.”
As the buzzer sounded to close the half, with TCC up 40-19, the Raiders, who lost in the NWAACC championship game a season ago, walked to their locker room in a silent daze.
“Their defense was a lot better than our offense. It took us out of things we wanted to do,” Pierce coach Bill Mendelson said. “A couple guys got rattled. We haven’t faced that kind of defense – until now.”
WOMEN
At Pierce 73, Tacoma 59: Brian Purugganan thinks freshman Kawehi Hagi has the tools to develop into one of the NWAACC’s best point guards.
For the first eight minutes of the second half, she was the best scorer on the floor.
Hagi busted out by tallying 16 of her game-high 25 points in the first 8:04, and Pierce (8-4, 2-0) scored on nine of its first 10 possessions after halftime to run out to a big lead.
Pierce scored 20 points in the first 4:50 of the second half to grab a 50-41 lead – with Hagi leading the way.
“She is really kind of the motor that gets us going, and we feed off her,” Purugganan said.
Keeping TCC (3-7, 0-1) within range was Sherelle Williams, a Rogers High grad, who scored 24.
Todd Milles: 253-597-8442 todd.milles@thenewstribune.com
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