TUMWATER — When the Black Hills boys basketball team came back from the Christmas break, they had one New Year’s resolution for 2026.
Play better defense.
The Wolves had given up an average of 76.6 points per game in their last five games before the break, including 81 in a loss to Bainbridge and 97 in a rout against Bremerton. Black Hills is far from the only victim of an insane scoring outburst from Bremerton, but head coach Jeff Gallagher still knew his team could play much better on that end of the floor.
“We had long conversations the last few practices about the previous five games. We were giving up way too many points,” Gallagher said. “We’ve made sort of a recommitment to getting stops in the halfcourt. Our kids are athletic enough to do it. It’s just a mindset of whether or not we’re going to choose to do it.”
In their next two games, the Wolves have seen tremendous improvement. Three nights after blasting Onalaska 67-42, Black Hills jumped out to a big lead against Mark Morris and held off a late rally to beat the Monarchs 72-59 Friday night.
The zone defense of the athletic Wolves (7-3) made an impact on the Monarchs, who struggled to find open looks in the first quarter. Black Hills opened up an early 18-point advantage thanks to an 18-2 run as part of a 27-11 first quarter. The lead swelled to 20 at halftime, with three scorers — Peyton Faught, Kona Bell and Quinton Morrill scoring 30 of Black Hill’s 39 first-half points.
The Wolves didn’t play the kind of defense that forced a bunch of turnovers and allowed them to run the floor in transition. In fact, Black Hills turned Mark Morris over only five times in the first half. But Gallagher’s squad closed out on shooters, hounded ball-handlers on drives and displayed fundamental footwork in post defense.
However, the Monarchs began to create open shots off the dribble and knocked them down in the second half. Anthony Fabian torched Black Hills with 20 of his game-high 31 points in the second half, and Drew Ibarreta also drilled four 3-pointers in the second half.
Mark Morris scored the first 10 points of the third quarter, and Gallagher chose not to take a timeout to see how his team would respond. The Wolves indeed responded on their own, and James Morgan provided a couple of buckets to help the lead get back to 18 late in the third.
“I’ve been criticized a lot for not taking timeouts. I feel like timeouts are a cop out,” Gallagher explained. “We need to figure stuff out on the floor, and so when teams get on runs, we like to settle it down and go from there. We’ve got an older group, and they responded to it.”
The Monarchs continued to chip away late in the third and into the fourth quarter. An 8-2 run by Mark Morris brought the margin to nine points with just over two minutes left in the fourth quarter — the first time the game had been that close since midway through the first quarter.
Talon Morrill helped seal the game with a layup as well as a steal and transition bucket in the waning seconds.
“Mark Morris did a really nice job in the third quarter, but as close as they got was nine, so I was fairly comfortable with that. Once they got it to within nine, I think our kids did a nice job answering whatever they were throwing at us,” Gallagher said.
Black Hills doesn’t have a ton of size, but the non-conference slate against bigger teams like Bainbridge and Bremerton has taught Gallagher how to find ways to compete when height is not an advantage.
“We’re not very big. We’re athletic. Playing against some bigger teams challenges us,” he said. “I know there’s some teams in our conference that are a lot bigger than us, and we’re going to have to respond.”
Faught led the Wolves with 20 points, while Morgan and Quinton Morrill each tacked on 14 points. Talon Morrill added 11, and Bell scored all 10 of his points in the first half.
Black Hills gets two of its first three EvCo games on the road, first traveling to Shelton on Tuesday, Jan. 6 before hosting W.F. West on Friday, Jan. 9. The Wolves will visit rival Tumwater on Tuesday, Jan. 13.
