The recipe may have been a little different, a little unexpected. But the result looked pretty similar to recent history, in a 66-38 Swamp Cup win for the W.F. West boys basketball team over Centralia.
Less than two minutes into the second quarter, Bearcat big man Soren Dalan picked up his second personal foul on a charge, forcing him to the bench in a five-point game. Without the focal point of their offense on the court, W.F. West went small, and Tyler Klatush and the rest of the guards powered an 11-0 run that put the lead back to double-digits, where it would only grow the rest of the night.
“They did well, the guards did well,” WFW coach Chris White said. “A lot of guys played, and it was fun to try some different combinations of people.”
Running with a lineup of Klatush, Lucas Hoff, Weston Potter, Braeden Jones, and Hunter Lutman, the Bearcats ended the half on a 15-3 run, hitting three 3-pointers.
Klatush ended the night with a team-high 15 points, taking charge throughout the night with multiple different lines of teammates.
“He did a nice job,” White said. “He always does a nice job of surveying things and not trying to get too greedy with it. He shares it well when he drives, and if he feels like the shot’s there for him, he’ll take it.”
Hoff added 11 points; all told, W.F. West’s guards combined for 39 points, outscoring Centralia by themselves.
“I like that we’re growing our guard play, I do feel good about that,” White said. “There’s a lot of different guys, like Ross Kelley, Weston Potter, a lot of nice guards that are starting to get better and better by getting opportunities.”
Dalan put in a 13-point, 12-rebound double-double for good measure to complement the play outside.
W.F. West’s guard-oriented attack mirrored Centralia’s which came out of a different sort of necessity. With Dalan clogging up the middle of the Bearcat zone, the Tigers’ best looks came from range. Early on, Cohen Ballard was happy to oblige, hitting three 3-pointers in the final three minutes of the first quarter to keep things close.
But as the night went on, the Bearcats started to close out better on Ballard, and the shots dried up.
“In the second quarter, we passed up a lot of shot opportunities,” Centralia assistant Kyle Sprague said. “Our shooters weren’t looking to shoot; we just kind of moved the ball around the perimeter. When we got hot at the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second, we were getting the ball inside and kicking it out, but we went away from that.”
Sprague was acting head coach for the Tigers in the absence of Kyle Donahue, who was out sick. He was still watching the live feed though, and lit up Sprague’s phone during timeouts.
Ballard finished with 17 points to lead all scorers, and Carlos Vallejo added 12, but they were the only Tigers to hit multiple shots.
W.F. West is set to be off until next Wednesday, when it gets a crack at Tumwater at home. Centralia will return to play Wednesday as well, at home against Black Hills.
