Giovanni Moimoi, Kentridge snap Kentwood’s six-game winning streak
Kentwood’s six-game winning streak is no more after Kentridge knocked the Conqueror boys basketball team off by an 81-78 score in overtime Tuesday.
The Chargers’ stunning win in the Kentwood gymnasium threw the North Puget Sound League Class 4A division standings into logjams for second and fifth place.
The top five finishers advance to the postseason.
“It was a great win and we needed it,” said Kentridge head coach Zac Webb. “Now we need to get some help from other teams, but we’re not going to worry about that right now.”
The Chargers got some of the help they needed in the form of Kennedy Catholic’s 53-51 Tuesday win over Mount Rainier.
The same victory by the Lancers left Kentwood in a final tie with them for second place at 10-4 in division play behind the 12-1 mark of first place Auburn.
Stadium stands in fourth place at 8-5 ahead of Kentridge’s 5-9 mark for a fifth place tie with Mount Rainier.
The 4-9 Tahoma team could join the jam with a home win over Stadium at 7 p.m. Wednesday, but it will be only a two-way tie if the Tigers of Tacoma go ahead and post the victory.
Tuesday’s crosstown win by the Chargers came on a day where school was cancelled in the Kent School District because of snow.
But the game went on as planned because both teams are within the district. If it had involved an out of district trip it would not have happened.
The roads cleared in plenty of time for the game.
The two teams battled to a 72-72 score through the end of regulation time with Mason St. Louis of Kentwood knotting it with a 3-point basket from the left side with 6.4 seconds remaining.
That sent the game into a four minute overtime period in which Giovanni Moimoi scored six of the Chargers’ nine points.
“It took a team effort and that’s what we did today,” said Moimoi, who sank his second of two free throw attempts with 1.4 seconds left in overtime to bring the score to the final margin and leave the Conquerors with only enough time to miss a long 3-point attempt that missed at the buzzer.
Moimoi also rolled in an inside shot with 1:07 to go that gave his team an 80-77 advantage.
At 3:34 to go he sank a free throw after making a putback for a 75-74 lead.
Kentwood had two chances at the free throw line in the final seconds but only made one of the four attempts.
Caleb Ross made his second of two tries with 40.2 seconds left to close the gap to 80-78, but teammate Brandon Tagle missed his first attempt at 2.0 seconds remaining.
Tagle missed the second on a line drive to try and make the rebound and appeared to grab it, but Kentwood lost the ball on a lane violation call.
Moimoi was quickly fouled and made his one of two tries with 1.4 ticks left on the clock.