Prep roundup: Kentwood’s 10-game win streak snaps in loss to Lynden; Curtis needs to find scoring touch before 4A playoffs

BOYS BASKETBALL

Ask Kentwood High School boys basketball coach Blake Solomon what team his defending 4A state champions, even with all its new faces, can’t play with.

“We can play with anybody when we play the way we’re supposed to and stay mentally in it,” he said. “When we’re mentally into it and playing unselfish, we are really good.”

This game against Lynden on Monday at the ShoWare Center, that just wasn’t one of those times.

The sixth-ranked Conquerors had their 10-game win streak halted against Lynden, the sixth-ranked 2A team, with a 48-43 loss to the Lions in the Martin Luther King Day King ShowCase.

Kentwood (13-3) hasn’t lost to a 4A team this year – including some marquee wins over Union and Camas. But it has lost to 3A Bishop Blanchet, 3A Shorecrest and now 2A Lynden.

Although, Lynden isn’t your average 2A team.

The Whatcom County school got a game-high 23 points from Christian Zamora and its length – it has six players who are 6-foot-4 or taller, not including probably its best player, 6-foot-5 Clayton Whitman, who has been in a boot but could return in two weeks – caused havoc for Kentwood around the basket.

“This was a lot on (Lynden),” said Solomon, who said they also lost to Lynden when they played in the summer. “Their defense is really good. They’re very long, strong, big and they are tough.”

“We’re a little school, but we’ve got some big kids,” Lynden coach Brian Roper said. “And we’ve got good depth. We felt if we could limit turnovers and rebounds the ball we’d have a chance.”

And that’s what makes Lynden a contender in a crowded group of top-tier 2A schools, which includes defending 2A state champion Foss.

“I was pleased with how our guys handled the pressure,” Roper said. “That’s oemthing we’ve struggled with at times this year and tonight we hadneld it well.”

But Kentwood had recently begun to look much like the 4A contender it was last year, with its 10-0 start to 4A North Puget Sound League Cascade play. It made 17 of 48 shots (35.4 percent) and didn’t get any 3-pointers outside of the four from standout point guard D’Angelo Minnis, who finished with a team-high 18 points.

Kentwood used an 11-1 stretch to take a 29-22 lead in the third quarter.

But Lynden endured and answered with a run of its own, outscoring the Conquerors 16-2 in one stretch.

Though Kentwood turned a 42-33 deficit with less than two minutes to play into a 42-41 Lynden lead when Minnis drilled a wing 3-pointer, shouting and flexing in excitement.

But Lynden’s James Marsh followed with a bucket and Zamora sealed it with an and-1 to give Lynden the 48-43 lead.

“Two teams that handled adversity very differently,” Solomon said. “And playoffs are right around the corner, and you’re going to have to be able to handle those things. So hopefully it’s something we can learn from.”

“When it was 29-22 and we turn the ball over four straight times and give up four layups, it took the energy and life right out of us.”

(4A) Auburn 80, (3A) Mt. Tahoma 37: KaSean Griffin scored 20 points and PaTreon Lee added 16 points as part of four players in double figures in the Trojans’ win in the King Showcase.

Auburn (10-6) took a 21-4 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Isaiah Dunn added 11 points and 10 rebounds. Tyler Williford led Mt. Tahoma with 11 points and seven rebounds.

(4A) Glacier Peak 70, No. 10 (3A) Spanaway Lake 61: Something that has plagued the Sentinels the past two weeks: rebounding.

That hurt Spanaway Lake again in the King Showcase as Glacier Peak handed the Sentinels their third loss in their past five games, outrebounding them 34-23.

And Bobby Martin scored a game-high 26 points with seven rebounds for 4A Wesco Glacier Peak.

Divante Moffitt led Spanaway Lake of the 3A Pierce County League with 18 points on 9-for-12 shooting. Derek Gordon Jr. scored 13 points and Isaiah Turner added 11, but Glacier Peak had built a 50-35 lead in the third quarter.

Noah Forman had 12 points and 10 rebounds for Glacier Peak.

Post Falls (Idaho) 52, No. 7 (4A) Enumclaw 39: Jake Pfennings scored 26 points as the 6-foot-7 combo forward led Post Falls past Enumclaw in the King Showcase.

He dunked a few times. And he also hit four 3-pointers in terrorizing Enumclaw.

Though, so did Enumclaw’s 6-foot-7 Kaden Anderson, who finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds. But no one else scored more than six for the Hornets (12-4), who have scored fewer than 45 points in five games (and lost four of them).

Enumclaw has a quick turnaround. It plays undefeated, No. 3 Federal Way at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Federal Way.

(1A) Vashon Island 46, (4A) Kentlake 39: Don’t look now, but here come the Pirates.

The 1A school jumped to an 18-4 lead and had to hold off the 4A Falcons’ run from there, but did so to earn their fifth consecutive win, improving to 10-4.

Kentlake crawled back behind 12 points from Michael Alar and Jalen Taylor to make it 31-28 entering the fourth quarter. But behind Jahmiah Hoogen’s 11 points and nine from Tommy Delargy, Vashon held on.

Vashon’s lone losses have come against a pair of Canadian teams and two 2A teams, Archbishop Murphy and North Kitsap. It is 2-0 in 1A Nisqually play.

Tacoma Baptist 61, Puget Sound Adventist 55: Senior guard Pj Talen wears the captain “C” for a reason.

He scored a game-high 23 points in the win.

“PJ got into foul trouble early and ended up missing a good portion for the first half,” Tacoma Baptist coach Rich Hamlin said. “It turned out alright because it got other guys going, and it was our bench that had a great night for us.”

But eighth grader Bradley Swillie scored 14 of the Crusaders 17 points in the second quarter, which included four 3-pointers to bring them to within four at the half.

“Bradley really kept us in the game,” Hamlin said. “It seemed like he just knew the situation, and he just really could not miss in that moment.”

With Talen back in, Tacoma Baptist outscored the Sharks 25-17 in the third quarter and held on from there.

Mount Rainier Lutheran 57, Pope John Paul 40: One the Hawks grabbed the lead, there was no stopping them.

They got off to a 17-9 run in the first quarter behind Adam Bailey’s 17 points, and they never looked back. Daniel Perry provided 14 points for Mount Rainier Lutheran in the win.

The win for the Hawks snapped a two-game losing streak.

Raymond 58, Northwest Christian 55: The Navigators won’t forget this game very quickly.

They fought and scratched their way through the first three quarters, and after a rough go in the first two, Northwest Christian finally seized a 44-42 lead going into the fourth quarter after Tyler Fox led them with 15 points.

However, the Seagulls were able to get back on track behind Marcus Anderson’s 14 points, to come from behind and take the win.

Despite the loss, Jude Phillips provided 14 points for the Navigators, while Tony Dominguez scored nine.

GIRLS BASKETBALL

Jackie Thomas has sat on the throne of Curtis High School girls basketball long enough to know what it will take for the Vikings to take the next step and become Class 4A contenders.

They need to be a better offensive squad against good teams.

“We have to figure out how to put the ball in the hole against a team that is physical,” the Curtis coach said.

Fourth-ranked Eastlake qualifies as such. In a rematch of a 2017 regional-round game, the Wolves pulled away in the second half for a 52-27 victory at the Willie Stewart Girls Basketball Showcase at Lincoln High School.

Eastlake (14-0) remains one of three undefeated 4A programs in the state, along with Central Valley and Moses Lake.

Junior forward Mae Bryant led the Wolves with 15 points. Keeli Burton added 13. Ella Brubaker paced the Vikings (10-5) with 13 points and nine rebounds.

On the surface, nothing seems positive about a 25-point defeat. But given Curtis lost to this same balanced Eastlake team a year ago, 83-50, the Vikings had a good second quarter to hand their hats on.

They trailed 17-5 after the first quarter, but forced five turnovers, and did a pretty good job filling lanes defensively — even without arguably their best defender in starting guard Sharay Trotter.

Kareyna Taylor’s right-corner 3-pointer capped a 7-0 run with 2:19 remaining to cut it to 19-14.

“That was really encouraging, because we have been working on (fullcourt zone defense) all season,” Thomas said. “This is why this game was so good for us. We can see all the work we’ve been doing, and this was a test.”

Now here is the problem — Curtis tallied eight second-half points, making two of 20 field goal attempts/

Five different Eastlake players scored in the third quarter as the 4A KingCo leaders pulled away. Boise State-bound Gina Marxen hit a pair of 3-pointers to trigger a quick 5-0 run to open the second half, giving the Wolves a 30-19 advantage.

“We are going to have to see more offense,” Thomas said. “We can’t go and beat teams you need to beat scoring 27 or 29 points. That is not going to get it done.”

Kentlake 50, No. 10 Sunnyside 46: This got a lot more interesting at the end that it looked like it was going to be.

But the Falcons held off Sunnyside’s late rally — despite houding full-court pressure — for the win at the King Showcase at the ShoWare Center in a matchup of two teams that reached the 4A state quarterfinals a year ago.

Ashlee Maldonado scored a game-high 27 points, including five 3-pointers, for Sunnyside, which made jsut 15 of 54 shots (27.9 percent).

Kentlake, meanwhile, made 14 of 34 shots (41.2 percent) and got 13 points from Anna Kruse. Aniston Denckla, the former 4A SPSL Northeast MVP, had 11 points and 10 rebounds. Aolani Talamaivao-Calderon, Kentlake’s 5-foot-11 post, had nine points and 10 rebounds.

Mount Rainier Lutheran 65, Pope John Paul 29: The Hawks have done it once already this season, and they did it again.

Led by Isabella Foxley’s 22 points, eight rebounds and five assists, the Hawks took it to the Eagles for the second time this season.

Mount Rainier Lutheran cruised to the win behind a 29-4 run in the second quarter. Claire Lyons helped her teammate by chipping in 17 points. Isabella Pettis led the Eagles with 14 points.

Puget Sound Adventist 42, Tacoma Baptist 16: The loss makes five in row for the Crusaders.

They struggled to find the offense in the loss to the Sharks. Hannah Peterson and Sarah VanLiew led Tacoma Baptist with four points, while Emi Bezman and Anela Dixon each had 11 for Puget Sound Adventist.

This story was originally published January 15, 2018 at 11:51 PM with the headline "Prep roundup: Kentwood’s 10-game win streak snaps in loss to Lynden; Curtis needs to find scoring touch before 4A playoffs."