Ron Charrier has believed in Eric Smith all season long, often praising his 5-foot-10 guard for bringing a calming influence to the Kentlake High boys basketball team.<\/p>\n
Smith, a junior, put that calm demeanor on display Friday night at the ShoWare Center in Kent. And, in the process, lifted the Falcons past Kent-Meridian 66-63 in overtime in a key South Puget Sound League North Division game.<\/p>\n
It was Kentlake’s fifth straight win.<\/p>\n
With the Falcons trailing the Royals 56-53 with 13 seconds remaining in regulation, Smith nailed a 3-pointer from the top of the key, breathing life into a Kentlake team that had trailed all night.<\/p>\n
Ignited by Smith’s 3-pointer, Kentlake proceeded to outscore Kent-Meridian 10-7 in overtime to seal the win.<\/p>\n
How big was Smith’s shot?<\/p>\n
Kentlake not only trailed the entire night up until his late shot, but also had to come back from a 46-37 deficit late in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
“Eric’s the reason we got going because we came out really slow,” Charrier said. “Eric was our ballhandler. He was the reason they couldn’t press us.”<\/p>\n
The win saved Kentlake (6-7 in league, 7-8 overall) from falling behind Auburn Riverside (6-7, 9-8) for the fifth-and-final playoff berth from the SPSL North. A loss would have dropped the Falcons behind the Ravens in the win column with top-ranked Federal Way slated for tonight. Auburn Riverside plays host to Jefferson (5-9, 6-11) tonight.<\/p>\n
“This keeps our season alive,” Charrier said. “If we would’ve lost, our season would’ve likely been over.”<\/p>\n
If Auburn Riverside falls to Jefferson, Kentlake could nab the final playoff berth with a win over the Ravens on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Smith finished with 14 points as did Tyler Wright. Jeff Budinich led Kentlake with a game-high 16 points and 14 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Sid Verma paced Kent-Meridian (1-12, 1-14) with 14 points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ron Charrier has believed in Eric Smith all season long, often praising his 5-foot-10 guard for bringing a calming influence to the Kentlake High boys basketball team. Smith, a junior, put that calm demeanor on display Friday night at the ShoWare Center in Kent. And, in the process, lifted the Falcons past Kent-Meridian 66-63 in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10154"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}