Prep Boys Basketball: Mark Morris hosts Kelso, Castle Rock and Toledo for preseason tipoff
Shooting Blind — New WIAA rule allows teams to jamboree earlier than ever
Nick Sisson for Blast Zone Media
The familiar sounds of sneakers squeaking, basketballs bouncing off hardwood, and students reigning down the ever-so popular chant “you can’t do that” toward the folks in black and white stripes were in full force Monday night on Ted M. Natt Court at Mark Morris High School.
Among other glimpses into the future, those in attendance inside soon-to-be-renamed Bill Bakamus Gymnasium were even treated with a glimpse of what a regular season matchup between Mark Morris and Kelso might look like later this year.
And if the shortened exhibition version was any indicator, then it means it will be an intense atmosphere.
The quartet of Mark Morris, Kelso, Toledo, and Castle Rock put their collective best foot forward to ready themselves for what figures to be a very competitive season for each squad in their respective leagues. Each team brought their own unique attributes to the court and displayed different styles and approaches in hopes of achieving success.
All but one of the mini-matchups was intense from the jump and came down to a single possession by the final horn. By the end of the night both Toledo and Mark Morris had gone 2-0, while Kelso and Castle Rock battled hard, if not entirely effectively, only to walk away 0-2 respectively.
Keep in mind that the contests were played just one week after tryouts began. In prior seasons teams had to put in 10 practices before holding the official scrimmages against other teams, but a WIAA rule change put jamboree season in the fast lane this year, for better or worse.
GAME 1
Castle Rock vs Toledo
The Riverhawks of Toledo were able to use great interior play from Cooper Fallon and Eli Weeks to outlast Castle Rock 18-17 in the evening’s opening act.
Toledo as a team was able to pound the offensive glass and apply smothering full-court pressure after made baskets to make it difficult for the Rockets to take flight up the court.
Trevor Rogen managed to knock down a few triples for Castle Rock, while Joey Burks provided great hustle, tough defense, and a very impressive layup right at Fallon late in the contest.
Toledo ran out to a 10-5 lead almost halfway through the ten-minute period, but the Rockets went on a mini 6-0 run to briefly claim a one-point lead 11-10.
Weeks was able to convert back-to-back layups on the other end to provide Toledo a cushion it was able to keep hold of through the end.
GAME 2
Castle Rock vs Mark Morris
Fans of all stripes were treated to the Dalton Stevens and Jaydn Jenkins show right from the opening tip in this one. Specifically, Stevens threw down an emphatic dunk in transition to score the first bucket and sent the Monarchs students into an early season frenzy.
That combo of Stevens and Jenkins proved too difficult for Castle Rock to stop, and Mark Morris cruised to a 24-9 win.
The pressure applied by Mark Morris on the defensive end was also leading to a lot of forced, difficult shots by the Rockets. The Monarchs were slightly fresher than their opponents and were able to rotate in several different line-ups to keep the pace of play in their favor.
All things considered though; Castle Rock did get another encouraging effort from Joey Burks. He scored eight of the teams’ nine points in the contest.
“Joey is an explosive player,” Castle Rock coach Jordan Spencer said. “This is going to be his first year on varsity, but he’s done a lot of work in the off season, and I think he's going to be very important player for us down the stretch for us this year.”
GAME 3
Toledo vs Kelso
Despite the Riverhawks’ players observing several Hilanders dunking with ease in warm-ups they would not be intimidated.
The C2BL team from Cheese Town held on to take down 3A Kelso 21-18 in Toledo’s final exhibition of the evening. “Coop” Fallon once again proved to be a difficult load to stop, and Tyce Vigre knocked down a couple three-point buckets for the Riverhawks.
Kelso got a couple of baskets from Triton Hagdahl-Daniel, including one from downtown, which is a new wrinkle in the 6’4” forward’s game.
The Hilanders trailed 21-15 with under 30 seconds left in the game, but did manage to hit a three to cut the lead in half and got a quick turnover to give their offense one last look to tie, but ultimately couldn’t hit the bucket needed to force a tie.
Overall, the game was competitive and a good sign for the bevy of underclassmen on the Toledo roster.
“We pride ourselves on being that hard-nosed team that likes to get after it with tough man-to-man defense, and that’s what I preach to our guys,” said Toledo head coach Grady Fallon. “We really want to hold opponents to 40 points or under 10 points a quarter. I told our guys that 18 points allowed in 10-minute periods is a little too much for us to be allowing.”
GAME 4
Kelso vs Mark Morris
The main event of the evening provided onlookers with plenty to digest after a scrappy affair between rivals from opposite sides of the Cowlitz River. Mark Morris held on late to fend off a motivated Kelso squad 19-17 after a chippy “practice game.”
Tucker Amrine got Kelso on the board first with a deep triple in front of the Monarchs student section, and then Stevens went full throttle to the hoop and jammed one of his two dunks down to get things off and running.
Mark Morris managed to work the ball inside to Mac West and Jaydn Jenkins for some tough buckets, and Drew Ibaretta knocked down a three from the top of the circle.
Kelso was also able to stretch the Monarchs defense out beyond the three-point line with two makes from Anthony Robinson and another from Hagdahl-Daniel.
Mark Morris led 18-14 with just over two minutes left in the contest and that was
A timeout granted to the Monarchs on a loose ball got the Kelso assistant coaches motivated to challenge the Hilanders defense to ignore the things they couldn’t control on the court and to start playing better team defense. The officials even got a regular season dose of protest that led to stern warnings issued before play resumed. Once it did, Kelso started to lock in on defense and didn’t allow Mark Morris anything easy.
A drive by Mark Morris’ Nate Stephens on a fast break was met by Bryar Iddings at the cup and resulted in hard contact that saw Stephens knocked to the floor and an intentional foul issued to Iddings. All things considered, the foul did not appear in my eyes to be intended to hurt Stephens, but the officials called it such to make sure the game didn’t head further south.
Stephens knocked down one of the two free bees, but Kelso forced a turnover immediately afterwards and got one last look to try and complete the comeback.
The final look from three went wide and Mark Morris held serve to complete the home jamboree sweep. After the game Mark Morris’ new head coach Ken Kelly was sure to acknowledge the rivalry and shared respect between his team and Kelso.
“It doesn’t matter when or what we are playing these guys for it’s just always going to be super-super competitive between us,” Kelly said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for coach [Joe] Kinch and to the testament of how he gets his guys ready to go.”
On the flip side for Kelso, it might not have been quite the start hoped for by coach Kinch, but ultimately there is a lot of learning to be done by a younger roster after a big graduating senior class. Kinch was able to find some silver lining with some light-hearted observations.
“Well, they were all early tonight,” Kinch said with a smile. “We all showed up on time and that’s important, but this group does the right things by showing up with an eagerness to learn. At times we were clunky offensively, but once we got settled in, we were able to find some opportunities,” he continued.
What’s Next?
The regular season is quickly approaching for each team and gets started as early as next Monday with Mark Morris hosting 3A Mountain View.
Castle Rock travels to 2A Black Hills on Tuesday, Dec. 3 to open their campaign.
Kelso will open their season on Thursday, Dec. 5, at 2A Ridgefield.
Toledo plays Friday, Dec. 6, at home in a Central 2B League contest against Morton-White Pass.
About the Author: Nick Sisson is the owner and talent behind N2 Media, a regional sports livestream broadcast company. You can find his work online at n2media.tv/