Boys Hoops: Tenino 5 Strong holds off Black Hills

12/9/2023

Tenino 53, Black Hills 45

(Tumwater, WA) The 1A Tenino Beavers came into this season with “young” experience for Head Coach Ryan Robertson knew he had a strong team comning intoi the season with an experienced but Junior heavy team with 7 on the varsity squad, just 2 seniors and 1 sophomore. But Friday night it would be even more difficult with 3 of his 5 junior starters on the bench dealing with either some nagging injuires or illness.

Point guard Will Feltus was designated as available to play but highly unlikely as Robertson didn’t think he would risk Feltus in a non-league game. Ashton Moore and Jack Burkhardt were out. This left the majority of the pressure on 6’6 Noah Schow and 6’2 Austin Gonia. These 2 are huge forces but would be pressed to handle duties they normally would not such as the Beavers turning to 6’6 Schow as their point guard. Gonia would also handle some of those duties. The other 3 normally coming off the bench were also pushed into unfamiliar riles, Preston Snider, Jaxson Gore and senior Cody Strawn.

Wolves Head Coach Jeff Gallagher is dealing with a rather new squad at the varsity level with senior Simon Nysted leading the way with fellow senior Jack Ellison. Sophomore’s Talan and Quinton Morrill and Freshman James Morgan wouold play significant playing time with senior Jace Cedargreen off the bench.

The Beavers trailed once in this game 2-0 then jumped out to a 13-7 lead after 1 and building that to a 26-14 advantage at the half. Schow and Gonia scored 23 of the 26 points with Snider nailing a 3. 5 different Wolves scored but none had more than 4 points.

In the 2nd half Nysted scored 13 of his team high 17 and several times cut the lead to just 7 but the Wolves could never get over that 7 point hurdle as the Beavers responded time and again. Schow wouoild go off and led all scorers with 33 points and completed the double-double with 16 rebounds and 7-9 from the line. Gonia is simply a beast inside and also tagged the double-double with 15 points and 18 boards. Snider finished with 3 and Jaxson Gore got in the scorebook with 2 points.

Nysted led the Wolves with the 17 but Peyton Faught up from the JV team got in and sank his first 3 shots from behind the arc for 9 points and Ellison who had to leave the game early with what looked to be an ankle injury had 6.

Tenino, who played the entire game with just 5 players and improves to 3-2 on the year and will next play on Saturday hosting East Jefferson. Black Hills drops to 2-2 and travels to Shelton for a league game next Wednesday.

The Thorbeckes Game MVP went to Noah Schow and the Better Homes and Garden Takin’ It to the House Play of the Game went to the Beavers Austin Gonia.

Scoring:

Tenino
Noah Schow 33, Austin Gonia 15, Preston Snider 3, Jaxson Gore 2

Black Hills
Simon Nysted 17, Peyton Faught 9, Jack Ellison 6, Talan Morrill 4, Jace Cedargreen 3, James Morgan 3, Jaxsen Beck 3

ESN Talks with Game MVP Noah Schow and the Post Game Show