The Men’s Basketball team has been looking pretty strong themselves in the last two weeks, playing the University of Puget Sound Loggers in Parkland, WA. On November. 24th, the Geoducks won its milestone 200th game for the Men’s’ program. With the team shooting a deadly 9-17 from three-point range, the Geoducks defeated the Loggers 74-66. Leading the team in scoring was KJ Hong who scored an incredibly efficient 25 points in just 30 minutes while only missing one shot the whole game. In spite of the Loggers taking 19 more shots than the Geoducks, Evergreen ran the score to a 27 point lead midway through the second half before easing up so as not to run up the score.
In its next game, Evergreen faced the Northwest Eagles as part of the men’s-women’s doubleheader last Saturday night. The Eagles, ranked #20 nationally and #2 within the Cascade Conference, had dominated the Geoducks in a 50-96 blowout last time they met. Northwest certainly showed how it did that in the first half, taking a 12-point lead at the end of the first period, buoyed by 18 points scored off of Evergreen turnovers while playing impressive defense holding the Geoducks to just eight field goals and not allowing them to get to the free throw line once. In the second half, though, Evergreen came storming back. A flurry of three-pointers by the Geoducks helped them slowly chip away at the Eagles lead over the course of the period.
The highlight of the second half came when KJ Hong scored eight points in a mind-boggling 40 seconds. With a little less than five minutes into the second period Hong was fouled while nailing a three pointer from the right wing, then hit his free throw. After the Eagles hit a three of its own, Hong set up on the left wing and quickly responded, once again hitting from long range while taking contact for another ‘And 1’. With just over two minutes left in the second period, Travis Wagner knocked down a deep three pointer to bring the score to 66-67, making it a one-possession game. With seven seconds left, and the Geoducks trailing by three, Wagner stepped up and hit another three as time expired to send the game to overtime.
As time ran out in the extra period, it appeared the game was over. Evergreen had been down two points with 1.5 on the clock and it appeared that time ran out as the Geoducks tried to inbound the ball for one last shot. However, the referees conferred and concluded that a Northwestern player had knocked the ball out of bounds with 0.8 seconds on the clock. Following a timeout, Coach Mosley devised a last ditch play, that the Geoducks executed perfectly, with Wagner lobbing the ball to forward Elzie Dickens caught in mid air and laid in as time expired to force a second overtime. “Playing more minutes in the second half really got me out of my slump,” Dickens said about scoring 14 of his 16 points after the first period.
Dickens continued his great play by scoring all six of Evergreen’s points in the second overtime, but in the final period Northwestern proved to be too much for the Geoducks and ended the game with a 89-94 double overtime win. “It was a tough loss, but I think playing them that tough was a big indicator of the team improving,” said Wagner. “When we’re shooting like that, we’re a hard team to beat.” The team’s next game is this Friday at the CRC against Lewis-Clark State College at 7:00 p.m.
By David Lukashok
