<\/a>Troy Keowla chases down a loose basketball. Ben Ray \/ The Reporter<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Boys game<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t For the boys game, Kentwood was coming off of a brutal loss against Kennedy Catholic where they fell apart in the last 11 seconds earlier in the week.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Over the days following at practice, the Conks had two great days of practice.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “After Tuesday, we were a little disappointed. I feel like that helped us change our mindset and lock in and prepare us for this game. I’m proud of my guys,” said Kentwood’s Mason St. Louis.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t There was an emphasis on getting out of the gate with an extreme pace, and Kentwood accomplished that goal.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “It was important for us to come out today and hit first,” said Kentwood Head Coach Blake Solomon.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t At the end of the first quarter, Kentwood was in front 20-8. But in the second quarter and throughout the rest of the game, the Conks never crushed the soul of the Kentridge. Due to that fact, the Chargers were able to cut into massive double-digit leads three times to cut the leads down to five points, four points, and even three points throughout the game.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “Every time we got it up 10 to 13, we would be careless for a couple possessions… We are learning we gotta go for 32 minutes. Once we put it together for all 32, we are going to become the team we know that we are going to be,” Solomon said. “We just gotta shore up those stupid mistakes when we have a chance to put our foot on the gas.” <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Despite the disappointment of that part of the Conquerors’ game, they still managed to extend the lead after those lapses in judgment. With four minutes until halftime, Kentridge, after trailing by 12, cut the lead to three at 25-22. But Brandon Tagle and Cory Tita made back-to-back-to-back three-pointers.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t St. Louis was the most consistent player on the night for the Conks — whenever they needed some solid play on offense, St. Louis answered the call.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “He’s really good. He can shoot it, put the ball on the floor… When you got a guy who can shoot and put the ball on the floor, it is really hard to guard… He’s really confident and confidence is key for him,” Solomon said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t St. Louis spoke on that confidence he is playing with this season.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “I’ve put in a lot of work. I’ve practiced a lot, so I’m confident in my game no matter who we play. I’m just going to go out there and give it my all,” he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Giovanni Moimoi scored just one field goal in the first half, a standout player made minimal impact against Kentwood. A trio of Kentwood defenders played part in that — Aaron Ton, Jacob Bail and Tita are standout defenders for Solomon.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Bail continues to be one of the more impressive first-year varsity players in the NPSL.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “He’s really big for our team… He might not be getting the most shots, but he’s always giving great effort. He’s really big for our team, very impactful,” St. Louis said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Kentwood took a seven point lead into the fourth quarter and that was where the lead remained as the Conks went on to win and get their season back on track.<\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kentridge girls and Kentwood boys take home wins in rivalry clash. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1142,"featured_media":71907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-71906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71906"}],"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\/1142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71906"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=71906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}