A slow start turned into a fast finish Friday night for the Kentridge High boys basketball team.<\/p>\n
Behind a season-high 28 points from Dylan Zylstra and another strong performance from guard Gary Bell, the Chargers turned back Kent-Meridian in a South Puget Sound League North Division basketball game, 73-59.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about what we thought we\u2019d see,\u201d said Kentridge coach Dave Jamison. \u201cThey\u2019re (Kent-Meridian) really quick and play hard. They\u2019ve got a couple of guys who can score. We hadn\u2019t been playing very well and hadn\u2019t had a game in awhile. But we\u2019ve been practicing well, so I\u2019m happy with the team coming out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kent-Meridian (1-5 in league, 1-7 overall) jumped to a quick lead in the first quarter before Kentridge\u2019s Bell gave the Chargers (5-1 league, 6-4 overall) a 16-14 advantage with less than a minute left in the quarter. He finished with 19 points.<\/p>\n
Kentridge built a 42-31 halftime lead and limited the Royals to just 28 points in the second half, courtesy of a suffocating full-court press.<\/p>\n
Laron Daniels and Colin Williamson added eight points apiece for the Chargers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew they would be physical and we knew they would be aggressive,\u201d Zylstra said. \u201cWe knew we would have to play as a team and not get down on each other and just run the floor, do as we\u2019re taught and finish strong. And I think that\u2019s what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barento Ahmed led the Royals with 17 points while Marlowe Brim (12) and Brandon Harris (10) also reached double figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys have a lot of pride and they\u2019ve watched the teams the last couple of years,\u201d Jamison said. \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about not being the team that starts the slide down. So we\u2019re pretty happy with our league play so far.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentridge, at No. 8 in the current Class 4A state rankings, is one of four SPSL North teams in the top 10. The others are No. 3 Federal Way, No. 5 Auburn and No. 9 Kentwood.<\/p>\n
The Chargers\u2019 only league loss this season was a 69-65 decision to Auburn on Dec. 9. Four days later, Kentridge shocked the previously No. 1 ranked Federal Way Eagles, beating them, 67-66.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re about where we thought we\u2019d be, but we\u2019re hoping to strive for a little better,\u201d Zylstra said. \u201cWe beat No. 1 Federal Way and that helped. We need to work on being aggressive because we\u2019re going to be outsized most of the time with our biggest guy being 6-6 and me at 6-4. But we have to keep going strong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
ELSEWHERE:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Auburn 71, Tahoma 44: The Fifth-ranked Trojans (6-2 league, 8-2 overall) put a hurting on Tahoma (0-7 league, 0-11 overall) on Saturday. The Trojans limited the Bears to just 16 first-half points. Jeff Gouveia had a game-high 22 points for the Trojans, with Christian Behrens adding 18 points for Tahoma.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Auburn 67, Auburn Riverside 66: The Trojans survived a scare from cross-city rival Auburn Riverside (3-4 league, 5-5 overall). The Trojans overcame a 35-24 halftime deficit to sock away the SPSL North win. Gouveia led Auburn with 22 points, and Isaiah Johnson added 15. The Ravens were led by junior Ryan Rogers with a game high 26 points and Mitch Hagerty chipped in with 19.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kentwood 62, Kentlake 47: Kentwood junior Joshua Smith poured in a season-high 36 points to lift the Conquerors (5-1 league, 6-3 overall) past Kentlake (1-5 league, 3-6 overall). The Falcons were led by Jeff Budinich with 24 points.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
GYMNASTICS<\/p>\n
Tahoma\u2019s Brianna McKenney was the all-around winner last week in a three-way SPSL meet between the Bears, Auburn Mountainview and Decatur. at McKenney who notched 34.65 all-around points, winning the bars with an 8.4, and the vault, with a 9.1. McKenney also placed third on the beam and second on the floor exercise. In the team competition, Tahoma placed second with 151.1 points. Auburn Mountainview won with 155.9 points. Lexi Matthews finished third for the Bears on the bars with a 7.1 score, and Kayla Kershner was third in the all-around with 30.95. Host team Decatur finished third with 133.5. Emerald Ridge was scheduled to compete but did not show because of the weather. \u2026 Kentwood finished second in a quad meet featuring the Conquerors, Kentridge, Federal Way and Olympia. The Conks were paced by a one-two all-around finish with Jamie Larsen taking home first with 34.45 points and Alex Perez finishing second with 32.55 points. Olympia finished first in the team competition with 152.7 points, followed by Kentwood with 147.45, Federal Way with 145.05 and Kentridge with 139.85.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A slow start turned into a fast finish Friday night for the Kentridge High boys basketball team. Behind a season-high 28 points from Dylan Zylstra and another strong performance from guard Gary Bell, the Chargers turned back Kent-Meridian in a South Puget Sound League North Division basketball game, 73-59. \u201cThis is about what we thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":12167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166"}],"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\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}