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St. Paul routs Saints in opener
Bruins hit free throws down the stretch to
win
Court begins tenure at St. Paul
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Nervous Tigers pounced on by Apollos |
The NHS boys basketball team is outscored 25-8 in
the second period and loses its season opener 70-45 to Sunset |
By B. Scott Anderson, Newberg
Graphic sports editor
E-mail Scott at banderson@eaglenewspapers.com
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PORTLAND — Nerves may have got the
better of the Newberg High School boys basketball team Thursday
night.
The Tigers were outscored by 17 points in the second quarter and
fell 70-45 to Sunset in the opening round of the Scots Basketball
Tournament 2006 at David Douglas High School.
For
Newberg, it was the season opener and it showed. Down 14-11 to start
the second quarter, Newberg struggled to break Sunset’s half-court
trap and turned the ball over multiple times, several of them
unforced.
“We were a little nervous,” first-year Newberg coach Mark Vernon
said. “We haven’t really prepared for a half-court trap. We’re just
not prepared in all the areas yet. We’ve been really stressing other
areas, but we know we’re going to get better and better as the
season goes on. The kids played hard, but we just met a better team
tonight.”
A trapping defense generally would play into the hands of Newberg,
particularly because it has several capable ballhandlers — Lonny
Gardner, Tony Torres, Drew Steindl, Josh Stoulil and Adam Lampley.
But even those players struggled.
“It was one of those things where they were running what I call
‘junk defenses,’ where they would just run and jump and double-team
and our guys just didn’t respond,” Vernon said. “A lot of that was
just because we haven’t worked on it, to be honest.”
With 5:28 to play, Sunset’s Michael Holton hit a three-pointer to
give the Apollos a 23-13 lead. Sunset pulled away from there and
went on a 16-6 run the rest of the quarter to lead 39-19 at
halftime.
“We didn’t defend at all in that quarter,” Vernon said. “We
probably had eight or nine turnovers and they all led to layups and
easy shots. (The Apollos) were hustling and trapping us and that
kind of accentuated the fact that we were a little nervous, but
we’ll be a good ball club. We’ll get better every game.”
The Apollos continued to pour it on in the third quarter,
outscoring Newberg 16-11. Both team scored 15 points apiece in the
fourth quarter.
Vernon ranked Newberg’s performance a 2 out of 10 for its first game
in a nine-game preseason schedule.
“But we’ll talk about these nine games as just getting ready for
league (play),” he said. “And this was another test for the kids and
it’ll make us a better team.”
The team returned to action Friday to finish out the
tournament at David Douglas; results were unavailable as of press
time. Vernon said the Tigers shouldn’t dwell on Thursday’s loss.
“Everybody believes they can come out and play a lot better,” he
said. “Nobody is putting any pressure on these kids. We just want
them to get better every game. I don’t want to worry about wins and
losses; I just want them to get better.”
Newberg was led by Torres and Stoulil, both of whom scored 10
points. Levi Fletcher added seven points; Gardner added six. Newberg
shot eight free throws in the loss and made four; Sunset was 4-of-6. |
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From
Dec. 2, 2006, Newberg Graphic
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