Prep Boys Basketball Roundup: Scores and Reports from The Blast Zone
Cold Start — Toutle Lake, Winlock, Rainier, Clatskanie all stumble in openers
Jordan Nailon / blastzonenews@gmail.com
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Fighting Ducks drop first game of new era at Mossy
For the first time in one third of a century there wasn’t a Swanson on the bench for Toutle Lake basketball when the season tipped off, Wednesday. With a new head coach and a new-look lineup, the Fighting Ducks fell 68-62 in a Central 2B League boys hoops contest.
“We played with inexperience,” said first-year Toutle Lake coach Nick Veys.
Veys took over the program after the retirement of Eric Swanon at the end of last season. Swanson had been drawing up the plays for the previous 33 years. Making the transition even more drastic was the fact that Zach Swanson wasn’t leading the offense for the first time in half a decade. The Ducks’ all-time leading scorer wrapped up his five-year varsity career at the state tournament last winter.
With so much change in the air Toutle Lake allowed Mossyrock to score 24 points in the first quarter and trailed by six points after eight minutes. The Ducks found themselves down 38-31 at the intermission and didn’t make up any ground in the third quarter.
The Vikings were led on offense by Ethan Johnson’s game-high 19 points. Easton Kolb added 13 points for the hosts.
Meanwhile, River Moss led the visitors with 15 points in the game, and the Ducks shaved three points off the gap in the final frame but could not get all the way back to even.
Toutle Lake’s Caleb Webber added 13 points, and Jonas Shelb posted 11 points in the loss.
Toutle Lake (0-1) will play at Castle Rock on Friday at 7 p.m. for the Exit 49 Kerfuffle.
Winlock’s comeback falls short at Morton
The Cardinals get off to the start they had planned but couldn’t stick the landing in a 59-52 loss to Morton-White Pass in C2BL boys basketball action in the gymnasium Bill Bakamus probably built in high school wood shop class.
Winlock led by four points after the first quarter but couldn’t keep up the pace and trailed 24-22 at the break of their season-opener.
“It was a tough one. But for the first game of the year, it’s fine,” Winlock coach Rich Cline said. “We were down a couple of kids who were out so we just had to go with what he had.”
Freddy Patching led the Cardinals with 17 points. Winlock trailed by 10 with two minutes to go and managed to cut the deficit to just three points before Judah Kelly iced the game for MWP at the free throw line.
Kelly finished with a game-high 33 points. He was the only MWP player in double figures.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals ran out of time and turbo in their comeback attempt.
“You make the push to get there and try to get over the hump and then you just can’t quite get there,” Cline said.
Arean Thapa tallied 10 points for the Cards. Lincoln Ruiz added eight and Landen Cline chipped in six points in the loss.
That road game in East Lewis County kicked off a stretch of five games in six days for the Egg City hoopers. Winlock will travel to Stevenson for a non-league tilt on Thursday, before hosting Adna at 7 p.m. on Friday for a C2BL contest. The Cards will host Columbia Adventist on Monday and then welcome Toledo across the freeway on Tuesday for the Battle of the Cowlitz.
Clatskanie suffers cold start at Warrenton
The Tigers dropped their season-opener at Warrenton on Wednesday by a score of 56-15.
Michael Simpson scored five points to lead the Clatskanie offense in the non-league loss. He added eight rebounds and two blocks to the stat sheet.
Zack Mollenhour added three points, five rebounds, two steals and one block for the Tigers.
Clatskanie (0-1) will play at Gervais on Friday.
*Just The Score
Catlin Gabel 77, Rainier 29
*Blast Zone Media was unsuccessful in obtaining a report for this game. Please send all scores, reports and other news tips to: blastzonenews@gmail.com