1/7/16

Olympia 76, South Kitsap 67

(Olympia, WA) The South Kitsap Wolves came into the game searching for their first league win after dropping their 1st 3 Narrows 4A contests including a controversial loss at Yelm where the winning shot at the buzzer was waived off by an official. The Bears came in perched atop the league standings at 3-0 and were looking to extend that streak as we begin the heart of league play.

SK felt the pressure and came out firing taking an early lead on the Bears as Eric Wattree hit from inside, outside and the free throw line on his way to 19 1st half points. The Bears would battle back after falling behind in the 1st quarter and would take their 1st lead about midway through the quarter as their scoring was well spread out with David Woodward scoring all of his 7 points in the 1st half. Woodward was questionable coming into the game due to illness and in fact his 1st half would be all he could do as he sat out the entire 2nd half.

The two teams would trade leads and battle back and forth to the break with the Bears holding a 37-34 advantage. As the 3rd quarter began the Bears began to wear down the Wolves extending their lead as the game went on. Eddie Beusch remained hot from behind the arch hitting 4 long balls on his way to 14 points, Liam Murphy also matched the 14 with a solid game start to finish.

The Bears took a 58-49 lead into the 4th quarter and maintained that to tally the win. The Wolves would make several runs led by Wattree who got off to a slow start in the 3rd but then heated up and finished with a game high 32 points. James Buckley was the only other Wolf to help Wattree on the offensive side of the ball hitting 5 3-balls finishing with 15 points.

Olympia held on to their lead in the 4th quarter with big efforts from Hunter Sipe who ultimately led the Bears with 17 and Brett Thompson who was the 3rd Bear to finish with 14. But 2 key plays with less than 2 minutes to play did in the Wolves, the 1st was with SK trailing by just 3, 70-67 and Buckley bringing the ball up with no pressure but simply lost control of the dribble and it went out of bounds and over to the Bears who then scored to make it a 5 point game. On the next trip down the Bears Brett Thompson came up with our ProActive Physical Therapy Play of the Game swatting a shot away from Wattree and the Bears would hit another 2 points to secure the win.

Olympia improved to 4-0 in Narrows League play and 9-1 overall while the Wolves dropped to 0-4 and 4-7. Our Tommy Lowe of the Greene Realty Group Players of the Game went to Eddie Beusch for the Bears and Eric Wattree for South Kitsap.

Scoring:

Olympia: Sipe 17, Beusch 14, Murphy 14, Thompson 14, Woodward 7, Young 4, Shafer 4, Effland 2

South Kitsap: Wattree 32, Buckley 15, Bayne 6, Lewis 6, Strutz 3, Tomkiewicz 3, Byrd 2

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