They wanted to repeat as the Class 4A state champions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Despite exceeding most all expectations, the Kentwood High boys basketball team didn\u2019t quite reach that lofty status last week, falling to top-ranked Garfield and unranked Olympia in succession at Juanita High en route to being eliminated from the Class 4A state tournament.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough for me to say we overachieved because that means we reached our goals,\u201d said Kentwood coach Brian Davis. \u201cComing in to the season, I knew we were going to be able to compete for a league title. We were knocking on the door all season. And then to get second in district, that\u2019s huge. My goal was to get back to state and we did that. We wanted to play on Saturday in March, and we didn\u2019t do that. But we did get back to the state tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Conquerors (17-10) entered the season in a sea of uncertainty, having graduated their top player in star Joshua Smith, now at UCLA, and with a new coach in fold after Michael Angelidis stepped down shortly after the team won last year\u2019s state crown.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Despite the change, Kentwood opened the season with six-straight wins, which included victories over eventual state participants Jackson of Mill Creek and Auburn.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As the season unfolded, the Conquerors were unable to remain step-for-step with Auburn and Kentridge, which finished in a tie atop of the South Puget Sound League North Division. However, Kentwood bettered both of its league foes at the district tournament, taking second after picking up wins over Kentridge, Auburn and Olympia. Olympia and Kentridge remain alive in the state tournament\u2019s Elite Eight.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, you finish top 12 in the state and get to the state tournament, that\u2019s pretty good,\u201d Davis said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get to the Dome, but we still have something to be proud of. We had a great run through districts, then met three really good teams.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That run of \u201cthree really good teams\u201d began with a 59-43 loss to Curtis in the championship game of the district tournament.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentwood\u2019s luck didn\u2019t improve thereafter as it drew star point guard Tony Wroten and top-ranked Garfield (22-3) in an opening-round game of the state tournament.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Wroten drained four 3-pointers and scored a game-high 29 points in putting away the Conquerors 78-48.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went out and did his thing,\u201d said Kentwood forward Taylor Jones, who finished with six points in the loss. \u201cHe started out distributing the ball, then he got on a roll and was on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentwood got behind big early \u2014 26-11 in the first quarter \u2014 and was unable to claw its way out. Mikell Everette led Kentwood in scoring with 10 points.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The following day, however, the Conquerors had another opportunity to earn a berth into the state\u2019s Elite Eight. All they needed to do was upend Olympia, which the Conquerors had beaten a week earlier in the district tournament, 66-49.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
After taking a 14-9 lead through the first quarter, Kentwood was unable to sustain the momentum, going into halftime tied 25-25. Olympia proceeded to take control of the game by outscoring the Conquerors 14-8 in the third quarter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t play our best basketball the last 3 games,\u201d Davis said. \u201c(Olympia) made us take tough shots, made us uncomfortable and we didn\u2019t execute and make plays.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Jason Boyce led Kentwood in scoring, delivering 14 points while Jones added 10.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cComing into the game, we were feeling confident,\u201d Jones admitted. \u201cBut we also knew that they were coming in off of a high after their win (over Monroe) and that we had to be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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They wanted to repeat as the Class 4A state champions.<\/p>\n
Despite exceeding most all expectations, the Kentwood High boys basketball team didn\u2019t quite reach that lofty status last week, falling to top-ranked Garfield and unranked Olympia in succession at Juanita High en route to being eliminated from the Class 4A state tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":17162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-17161","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\/17161"}],"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=17161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17161"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=17161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}