Girl hoopsters trying to stay afloat
A season that started with such promise is suddenly falling apart for the Bainbridge girls basketball team.
Their 58-37 loss to the ninth-ranked Rainier Beach Vikings on Wednesday left the team angry, frustrated and in need of a spark to right themselves.
“We have it in us to be playing a lot better than we’re playing right now,” guard Emily Farrar said.
The sides traded buckets in the first quarter before Charnay Combs and Tireion Turner scored consecutive hoops to give Beach the lead.
They stretched their lead to 18-6 in the second quarter before Anna Wood came off the bench to help the Spartans fight back.
Brittany Gray and Megan Burris went on a 6-0 run to open the third and cut the lead to four, but the much quicker Vikings went on a 19-0 run to end any chance of a comeback.
Farrar said the level of competition has risen this year.
“We’re in one of the toughest leagues in the state, so it’s a dogfight every single game,” she said.
“There’s some serious work to be done, but we want to win,” Farrar continued. “We’re trying, and that’s all I think we can ask of each other is that we’re trying.”
Gray finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds, while Burris had nine points and nine rebounds.
Bainbridge hosts Bishop Blanchet next Wednesday.
Spartans get big win at home
At last, Scott Orness could exhale.
After he was finished with the last of his interviews, the head coach let out a “WHOOO!” to assistant coaches Stuart Mitchell and Henry Guterson in a deserted locker room.
He could relax because the Bainbridge boys basketball team turned in a total team effort to defeat the Rainier Beach Vikings 80-62 Tuesday night in front of a standing-room only crowd that yelled at levels rivaling any big-time college basketball arena.
“That’s why I coach,” said Orness, who admitted before the game that he was nervous. “I love that feeling of those butterflies before a game. It’s an addictive feeling.
“We have great fans and great community support. We have a huge homecourt advantage and we need to take care of it and this place and the people that support us. We need to go out and play good basketball for them.”
Sixth man Rudy Sharar said the win is one of the biggest of the Spartans’ prep careers.
“You can’t really describe it,” he said. “This is the game on our calendar that we’ve had marked ever since the beginning of the season, and to come out and play that hard and that well and just take it to them is amazing.”
Nick Fling was excited to play in front of the Spartan throng.
“We love our crowd,” he said. “To have a big crowd like that on a Tuesday night on finals week, that’s huge. It really helped us out.”
The Spartans, bumped down to second in the latest AP 3A state basketball poll, dueled with the third-ranked Vikings for most of the first quarter.
Beach started hot with two three-pointers from Ronnie Phillips, but Coby Gibler put Bainbridge ahead with seven points in the paint, including a three-point play.
Then Steven Gray got into the act, driving into the lane for a score, hitting a turnaround jumper and sinking two threes – part of five straight three pointers from both sides.
In the second, Shawn West scored to close the Spartans’ lead to two, but Gray scored on another drive to the hoop.
After DeAngelo Jones scored down low, Gray came right back and banked in a three.
That sparked a 14-0 run that got the crowd going crazy with every bucket, punctuated by a three ball from Caleb Davis from the corner with 2:45 left until the half.
Gray said they needed some time to adjust to the hectic atmosphere.
“We haven’t had that many people (at a game) so it’s hot down there (on the court),” he said. “It seems like everyone is taking up the air.”
West hit another three, but Jones bricked a one handed dunk after stripping the ball from Fling.The Spartans recovered and got buckets from Austin Wood and Davis before the half.
“We didn’t want to stop attacking,” Davis said. “We just wanted to stay with it (our game plan) and shots were dropping.”
They kept it going, as Gibler, Wood and Gray all scored to open the third quarter.
Gibler was playing with the flu, but Wood said the Spartans knew they had to do their job even without Beach’s Emeka Iweka in the middle.
The Rainier Beach big man was out with a season-ending Achilles’ tear suffered in play just days earlier.
“Most teams would be stoked to have Emeka out but we were a little bit upset because we wanted to get the full range of Beach,” Woods said. “We just came out as hard as we could.”
Sharar pushed their lead up to 21 when he completed a three point play.
That was it for the Vikings, who couldn’t get the lead down to single digits in the fourth.
Fling, Sharar and Gray, who had to leave for a few minutes to get his hand bandaged due to a cut, made sure they wouldn’t come back by connecting on their free throws.
“They’re a dangerous team even without their big man,” Gray said. “They’re always right there to come back in the game, so you just stay on your toes and keep attacking.”
Orness said he was pleased with how the squad has come together as one.
“The biggest key for us is that we’re playing as a team this year,” he said. “We have everybody doing their role.”
“We’ve got guys controlling the paint, we’ve got guys penetrating, we’ve got guys playing good defense, we’ve got guys on the bench that are working hard every day in practice making the guys who get minutes good. They deserve a lot of credit for this.”
All five starters finished in double figures for scoring.
Bainbridge (8-0, 11-1) travel to Bishop Blanchet today.
They head to Cleveland on Monday, then host the Braves on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Spartan grapplers pound on W. Seattle
The Bainbridge wrestling team got ready for the postseason with a 39-24 win over West Seattle Thursday night.
Eight Bainbridge wrestlers scored decisions in their favor to provide the majority of the points.
Eli Narte dominated his match in the 119-pound category, winning by technical fall over Keith Jacobsen.
Matthew Ritualo went to overtime to defeat Delano Jordan by a 13-11 decision, while Grey Wilson and Keith Robert defeated Brandon MacKinnon and Jack Hilton in the 130 and 135-pound category by decision, respectively.
Matt Tetlow pulled out a tight 10-9 decision over Henry Carpenter in the 140-pound category, while Peter Paskell pinned Mac Clay at the 4:54 mark in their 145-pound match.
Mason Remy pinned Nick Fagan at 5:01 in the 171-pound category while Stephen Ritualo won by forfeit to round out the scoring.
Bainbridge lost to Eastside Catholic last Friday by the score of 41-28.
Remy and Ryan Hinkley won by pinfall, while Matthew Ritualo, Tetlow and Paskell won by decision.
The Spartans traveled to Lakeside yesterday for their last match of the season.
The Metro tournament is Feb. 3 and 4 at Nathan Hale.
