Kent-Meridian continued the trend on Tuesday<\/a> when it avenged an early season loss to Mount Rainier with a 75-73 win over the division leaders.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe Royals, led by Mike Banks with 21 points, took sole possession of first place in the SPSL North with the victory over the Rams.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A trio of K-M players \u2014 Gary Bailey, Abu Kamara and Martel Taylor-Barone \u2014 offered the kind of offensive balance the team needed as they each chipped in a dozen points.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentridge set the stage on Jan. 6 and did what Kentwood nearly pulled off a few days earlier: an upset of highly-touted Mount Rainier, winning 80-72, thanks to Jawan Stepney\u2019s game-high of 26 points.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Chargers sophomores led the way against the Rams, with Danny Torlai adding 19 to Stepney\u2019s output, along with junior John Okot-Okidi chipping in 17 points.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It was a back and forth first half between Kentridge and Mount Rainier. The Rams took a one point lead into halftime and the Chargers kept it close through the third quarter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Then Kentridge broke out in the final period, outscoring Mount Rainier 27-19.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That win opened the door for Kent-Meridian to challenge for the division as it stood at 6-2 in league play, the same mark Mount Rainier was at following the loss to Kentridge, but the Royals lost early in the season to the Rams.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kent-Meridian won the rematch Tuesday to move into sole possession of first place with a 7-2 record. Mount Rainier is 6-3.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Kentwood very nearly pulled off an upset of highly-touted Mount Rainier on Jan. 4, but squandered at 12 point third-quarter lead, as the Rams beat the Conks 64-62 at Kentwood.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With four minutes, 21 seconds left in the third quarter, the Conks had the double digit lead thanks to a Taylor Jones layin but the Rams chipped away at the lead the rest of the period.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In the fourth quarter, Kentwood went cold, going nearly four minutes between buckets while Mount Rainier went on a 10-3 run.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Jeremy Smith drained a three pointer with 6.7 seconds left to cut the Mount Rainier lead to one point, 62-61, but Kentwood just couldn\u2019t get the game tied up or take back the lead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Jones and Austin Benson were the leading scorers for the Conks with 18 points each.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Adrian Davis led the Rams with 20.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kent-Meridian\u2019s win over Mount Rainier is all the sweeter after a surprise loss to Tahoma, the Royals only game last week.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Tahoma had a 10 point lead at halftime and hung onto the victory despite being outscored by K-M in the second half.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Coleman Wooten had 16 points for the Bears while De\u2019Shon Williams added 11.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Abu Kamara led the Royals with 15 while Mike Banks chipped in 13.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentwood bounced back in a match up against Tahoma on Jan. 6. What started out as a close game in the first half with the Conquerors taking a one point lead into the locker room turned into a blowout in the second half as the Bears were held to single digit scoring in each of the final two quarters.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Benson tallied 19 points while Jones added 12, but, five other Kentwood players contributed four or five points apiece to create a balanced offensive effort.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Dominic Smith and Coleman Wooten led Tahoma with 9 points each.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Finally, Kentlake put together a pair of key victories last week against league rivals Kentridge and Thomas Jefferson.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentlake found a way to win after being down early at home to Kentridge, putting together a strong second half for the 64-59 victory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
At the end of the first quarter, the Falcons were down 22-11 to the Chargers, as they struggled to get points in the paint.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
At the 5:23 mark in the second quarter, Kentridge was up 29-13 thanks to a Roddy Hanson three ball, to which Kentlake responded with a 12-3 run to cut the lead to six at the half, 32-26.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Conner Crooks started the run with a pair of made free throws, followed by a Carson Stowell jumper who put in a three pointer less than a minute later, with Austin Pernell scoring the final four points for the Falcons when he made a pair of free throws with 1:12 on the clock followed by a drive to the bucket in transition with less than a minute left.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentlake outscored Kentridge the rest of way, 18-11 in the third quarter and 20-16 in the final period, with Ayanle Jama leading the Falcons with 19 points while Stepney tallied 19 to lead the Chargers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
On Jan. 6 Kentlake pulled off a narrow victory over Jefferson on the road winning 74-72.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Falcons had a five point lead after the first quarter, but, the Raiders outscored them in the second and third quarters.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentlake managed to overcome a double digit deficit in the fourth quarter to get the win.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Heck led the Falcons in scoring with 25 while Dedrian Miller tallied 17, Jama had 14 and Pernell added 13.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the tough South Puget Sound League North division, anyone can beat anyone in boys basketball, and last week was a prime example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":7207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7206","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\/7206"}],"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\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7206"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}