The Kentlake High boys basketball team hit a wall Tuesday night with a South Puget Sound League North Division playoff berth on the line.<\/p>\n
Needing a win over Auburn Riverside to keep its postseason hopes alive, Kentlake fell flat. Auburn Riverside’s Ryan Rogers torched the Falcons for a game-high 21 points and Dustin Hegge came off the bench to chip in 19, leading the Ravens past Kentlake 76-61.<\/p>\n
The loss eliminated the Falcons (6-9 in league, 8-10 overall) from playoff contention.<\/p>\n
“We came out flat. I don’t know (why),” said Kentlake coach Ron Charrier. “We discussed not getting out to a slow start. We discussed coming out with intensity and playing hard the entire game. We came out flat and they took it to us.”<\/p>\n
The Falcons came into the night needing a win to remain alive for the SPSL North’s fifth-and-final playoff berth. A win would not have clinched the final playoff spot, but it would have put Kentlake in the driver’s seat with just one game remaining.<\/p>\n
Had Thomas Jefferson (6-10, 7-12) upset Kentridge on Tuesday night, Kentlake’s postseason aspirations would have remained faintly alive despite the loss as there would have been a possibility of a three-way tie for fifth.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Raiders lost to the Chargers 58-54.<\/p>\n
Kentlake can still forge a tie for fifth place with Auburn Riverside (7-8 in league, 10-9 overall) with a win over Kentwood on Friday. The Ravens, however, have beaten the Falcons twice this year, thus breaking any possible tie.<\/p>\n
After the win, Auburn Riverside coach Tom Adams finally was able to relax.<\/p>\n
“Sense of relief? Absolutely,” he said. “I am very proud of the kids. This was hard.”<\/p>\n
Rogers ignited the Ravens from the beginning, scoring his team’s first eight points as Auburn Riverside built an immediate 8-5 lead and never looked back.<\/p>\n
Auburn Riverside’s hot early shooting and Kentlake’s lack of an offensive spark proved to be the difference. The Ravens went 5 for 5 from 3-point land in the first quarter to take a 26-11 lead. Rogers scored 11 of those 26 points.<\/p>\n
And while the Ravens were plenty hot from the outside, Kentlake didn’t do itself any favors, turning the ball over eight times in the first quarter alone.<\/p>\n
The Falcons didn’t get any closer than 15 points until the fourth quarter, when Tyler Wright sparked a 30-16 game-ending run. Wright came off the bench to score a team-high 15 points, 12 of which came in the final eight minutes.<\/p>\n
“Tyler played his heart out,” Charrier said. “He was our emotional leader, the guy who hustled all over the floor. He was the one who wanted it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Kentlake High boys basketball team hit a wall Tuesday night with a South Puget Sound League North Division playoff berth on the line. Needing a win over Auburn Riverside to keep its postseason hopes alive, Kentlake fell flat. Auburn Riverside’s Ryan Rogers torched the Falcons for a game-high 21 points and Dustin Hegge came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21858"}],"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=21858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21858"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}