Tribe falls to ‘Mooks, beats Banks

The Indians can’t stay as close in their second meeting with the Cheesemakers

By John Brewington

The South County Spotlight, Feb 9, 2010

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The Scappoose Indians are still in a race for a playoff berth, but the league title is slipping out of their grasp.

The Tribe beat Banks last Tuesday, but needed a hard-to-get win at Tillamook to slip back into the title race. A 65-43 loss dropped them a notch, but playoff hopes are still alive.

The Indians (4-3 in league) got a 20-point performance from Cory Hendryx on Tuesday in a 49-44 win at Banks. Scappoose trailed Banks by three after the first period, 10-7, but dropped 18 points through in the second period–all field goals–and led 25-19 at the break.

“We struggled out of the gate, only scoring seven in the first quarter due to eight turnovers,” Coach Ryan Svenson said. “For the next two quarters we played pretty well as a team. We didn’t shoot the ball, but we got balanced scoring and did a nice job defending Banks’ big two of Trask Bowden and Chris Loza, who came in averaging a combined 28.”

“Cory and Jacob Watt really did a nice job of defending on the perimeter and the rest of the guys were in great help position. We pushed the lead up to 11 late in the third, and then kind of let off the gas and let them back into the game. Banks came back to take the lead with about a minute to go, but Cory hit a huge three to put us up two and then Watt and Cory made free throws to provide the final margin. We also had two really nice defensive stops during the final minute. We dug in and kept them from getting a good look,” he added.

The Tribe had built a huge lead before letting Tillamook slip away with a win in their first meeting. This time Tillamook got a four-point lead in the fourth, and parlayed that into a 36-24 halftime margin. The Indians didn’t make much of a dent in the lead in the third, and Tillamook went to the line 16 times in the fourth, sinking 13 of them.

Svenson was a little philosophical about the loss to the Cheesemakers. “Sometimes sports are hard to explain. The day before the Mark Morris game, we had probably our worst practice of the year and pulled off a huge win. I thought that we had one of our best practices of the year on Thursday in preparation for Tillamook, but for whatever reason that didn’t translate to the game.”

“We let their pressure defense speed us up and led to us taking some ill advised quick shots. On the other end, we actually defended fairly well, but we just got killed on the glass, which gave them way too many second and third looks. They are just too good to give that many extra possessions to,” he said.

Foul trouble for Nick Paxton and Jason Sawyer hurt the cause, as did Jacob Kienlen missing the game with an illness. Svenson was pleased with sophomore Cody Stutzer who came in and boosted Scappoose with seven first-quarter points.

The Indians hosted Seaside on Tuesday, and travel to Yamhill-Carlton this Friday. They host Astoria on Feb. 19 to finish out the season.

Cowapa League playoffs for the boys start with the number five team playing at number four on Wednesday, Feb. 24. The winner of that game plays at number-three on Saturday, Feb. 27. The top two teams are not in the playoffs. If there is a tie for the number-three spot, there is just a playoff between them. Scappoose and Seaside were tied at 4-3 going into Tuesday’s game.

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