The Blazers kept things close throughout, but couldn't cut into the Storm's lead late in a 78-73 loss to Chemeketa Tuesday night in NWAC men's basketball action at Michael Smith Gymnasium in the Hub City.
Centralia dampered their own efforts from the start, suffering from an offensive drought while the Storm racked up a 14-2 lead early on.
“We obviously have got to do better job of coming out right from the beginning and being ready to play,” Centralia coach Jason Moir said. “Part of it is we’re young and we don’t have a lot of strength in our shooting right now. That’s something that we have to continue to work on in practice.”
The Blazers struggled with the 3-point shot on both ends, allowing Chemeketa to fire off 12 treys on 36 attempts while just shooting 4 of 23 on their own side of the floor.
Jephthah Donkor made his debut for the Blazers with 21 points and 17 rebounds, 10 of them being on the offensive end, on 10 of 18 shooting, with four blocked shots.
“I thought he did great,” Moir said. “As a freshman, his effort was phenomenal but if we can get him to focus on his first shot, he might not get as many rebounds, but his scoring will go up and that’s only going to make people around him better.”
Full of youth, Centralia only had two sophomores in action tonight — Dane Fjeld and Josiah Warner, who scored a game-high 22 points and corralled seven rebounds for the Blazers, who trailed 40-33 at halftime. Moir praised Warner for his leadership in leading the Blazers back into contention, saying that his role will be critical in the development of the freshmen on the roster.
“It’s always nice to have guys that have been around,” Moir said. “It should allow younger guys to kind of see what they have to look forward to as they get to have that experience. With as many freshmen as we have, they’re going to need to get that experience right here and now so they’re ready to go in January.”
The Blazers will travel to Longview on Friday for the Red Devil Classic.
