He has played second fiddle to his star teammate all season long.<\/p>\n
Friday night under the ShoWare Center spotlight, Kentridge High\u2019s Brendan Westendorf took center stage.<\/p>\n
Westendorf, a mild mannered 6-foot-4 senior forward, went off for a game-high 23 points, leading the fourth-ranked Kentridge High boys basketball team past No. 5 Kentwood 61-54 in the featured game of the Les Schwab Kent Shootout at the ShoWare Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was feeling pretty good,\u201d said Westendorf, who also grabbed nine rebounds. \u201c(The basket) was pretty big.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for playing second fiddle to Gonzaga University-bound star and the league’s leading scorer Gary Bell, Westendorf is plenty good with the role.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t mind it because then teams leave me open to shoot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Which is exactly what happened Friday night at the ShoWare Center. Westendorf torched the Conquerors for 19 first-half points. In addition, he connected on 5 of 6 from 3-point land.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen him do this,\u201d Bell said. \u201cHe\u2019s my one-two punch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentwood (8-4, 11-5) threw multiple defenders at Bell, who came into the night averaging 27.7 points per game. Bell had been particularly good in the three contests leading up to Kentwood, scoring a combined 107 points. Despite struggling from the field against the Conquerors (7 of 20, including 0-3 from beyond the arc), Bell still finished with 19 points to go along with four rebounds, four assists and two steals.<\/p>\n
After taking a first-quarter lead, the Chargers held the Conquerors at bay the rest of the night.<\/p>\n
Tied 5-5 in the first quarter, the Chargers (11-2, 13-4) took the lead for good, when Roddy Hanson delivered a putback basket off an offensive rebound.<\/p>\n
Kentridge built its biggest lead late in the second quarter, when a Westendorf 3-pointer was followed by a one-handed jam by Bell, giving the Chargers a 28-18 advantage. Kentwood cut the deficit to two points, 33-31, on a bucket down low by Taylor Jones with 2:25 remaining in the third quarter, but would get no closer.<\/p>\n
It was Kentridge\u2019s seventh win in a row, and puts the Chargers in the driver\u2019s seat for capturing their first SPSL North title since the 2007-2008 season, when they shared the honor with both Kentwood and Decatur.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis win was key,\u201d Westendorf said. \u201cWe want (the North title) all to ourselves this year. We aren\u2019t sharing it with anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones led Kentwood with 12 points while Jason Boyce added 11 points and a team-high 7 rebounds. Kentridge\u2019s Denzel Daniels added 10 points for the Chargers, including a pair of 3-pointers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He has played second fiddle to his star teammate all season long.
\nFriday night under the ShoWare Center spotlight, Kentridge High\u2019s Brendan Westendorf took center stage.
\nWestendorf, a mild mannered 6-foot-4 senior forward, went off for a game-high 23 points, leading the fourth-ranked Kentridge High boys basketball team past No. 5 Kentwood 61-54 in the featured game of the Les Schwab Kent Shootout at the ShoWare Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":1727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-1726","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\/1726"}],"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=1726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}