Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 2018)
SPORTS Cougars continue comeback BY JACOB THOMPSON '; SPORTS EDITOR Clackamas Community College’ s m en’ s basketball team overcomes slow start at Chemeketa Community College to win their fourth straight game, improving to 12-6 on the season and 4-1 in league play. Coming off of a 76-65 win over Linn- Benton Community College on Jan. ,'17, the Cougars looked to keep things rolling against th eir rival C h em eketa Storm Saturday. “ [C hem eketa] alw ays seem s to be jacked-up for us,” said Head Coach Clif W egner. “ They alw ays seem to p lay w ell against Clackam as. I don’ t know w hat they say or do, but yeah, it’ s been a rivalry for 20 years before I was here. ” W ith.full bleachers and enthusiastic C h em eketa fan s at fu ll th ro a t, the opening tip went Clackamas’ way, and sophom ore guard Briggs Young h it a 3-pointer just 24 seconds into the game. But it would be the Storm who controlled the first five minutes of Saturday’ s game. After Young’s 3-point basket, Chemeketa outscored the Cougars 19-9. Chemeketa was ahead by nine for most of the first half, but big layups by freshm an p o st Adam Gehrig w ith 4:52 rem aining and sophomore guard Isaiah Gentry at the fo u r-m in u te m ark pulled Clackam as w ithin six points of Chem eketa at 31- 37. Gehrig completed another big lay-up at the end o f the first half to shrink the deficit to one; 47-48 Chemeketa. . “ Every team in.this league is good> they can beat you any day,” said Young. “ You just got to stay persistent and take it one step at a time. We got down by 12, but then we came back real w ell going into the second half.” The Cougars shot w ell in the first half, h ittin g 17 o f th eir 31 sh o ts from the field. Clackam as’ leading scorers were sophom ore guard Nygil Carr (13 PTS), Gentry (10 PTS), and freshm an forward Donovan Tafua (9 PTS). Chemeketa shot 18. for. 38 from the field and were lead by sophom ore guard A ustin Evans (9 PTS), freshman forward Gage Johnson (8 PTS), and sophomore guard Jack Frazier (7 PTS). The second half saw the Chemeketa Storm com e out hot once again, and before four m in utes had passed, the Storm was once again up by 11, leadihg 60-49. W egner called a full timeout at 16:31 to regroup the Cougars, and the strategy paid off. Out o f the tim eout, Clackamas Print _ _ _ — .— ---- - Donovan Tafua, a freshmen toward for Clackamas, clashes with Gage Johnson of Chemeketa. Clackamas ended the game 92-88, granting them a forth straight win. Clackamas got the ball to Young, and he hit a 3 -pointer that sparked a 10-2 run that evened things up at 62-62 with 13:45 remaining in regulation. “ It was an intense game,” said Wegner. “ There was some stuff going back and fo rth and the referees w ere trying to settle people down, but I think our kids really kept their posse, and didn’t make any dumb fouls, and run their mouths and get a [technical foul] like they did. Kudos to our kids for staying w ith it and battling from behind. ” The game was neck and neck from that point until 830 remaining were behind Gentry’s near perfect free throw shooting (4-5), and Young’s 3-point shooting, the Cougars pulled ahead by 11 in a little over a minute; 81-70, Clackamas. “ It comes w ith the game and it goes with the game,” said Carr. “We never give up. We’re going to keep on fighting until we see double zeros on the scoreboard. ” Chemeketa then went on a run of their own, outscoring 9-2 to tighten the score at 83-79, but once again Young canned a ejutch three-pointer with 2:21 remaining “ We have’ a l o t p f ch em istry,” said G entry. “ W e w ork on th is s tu ff in practice, at the beginning we kind Of tried to go one on one, but at the end we realized what we wanted, and that was a win. So we all came together and found the hot hand,, and tonight it happened to be Briggs in that second half.” Young’s hot hand (15 PTS in the second half) helped the Cougars regain, and maintain the lead, but it was Gentry’ s perform ance from the free throw line th at k e p t ^ e ,S t o r m fro m m akin g a comeback, making seven of nine from the charity stripe, three of which came with 40 seconds or less rem ainingin the ball game. “ Mostly we made our free throws and didn’t turn it over,” said Wegner. “That’s a really good win because they have been playing well. That’s the fifth ranked team w e’ve beaten in this stretch. W e’ve won eight out of nine. I feel like w e’re playing w ell and peaking at the right tim e.” The C ougars fin is h e d th e n ig h t shooting 33 for 68 from the field, and were led offensively by Gentry (21 PTS), Young (18 PTS), and Carr (17 PTS). Tafua and G entry grabbed five .rebounds a piece, and G entry led the team w ith three steals. Chemeketa shot 32 for 74 bn the night, and their high scorer w as fresh m an forward Bryson Gray, w ith 17. points. So far th is season Clackam as has averaged 91.9 points per gam e driven by Carr (21.6 ppg), Gentry (16.4 ppg), and Young (10.7 ppg) the Cougars have cbn sistent guard p lay that m ay have them ready for a run at a NWAC title. “ We practice this, we go to practice and put up a bunch of s h o ts ,” said Carr. “ These tw o are probably the best shooters I’ve ever played with in my life. [Gentry] catches fire, [Young] catches fire, [Young] knows how to shoot, but so m etim es he gets n ervous. Briggs know s how to shoot the ball, Isaiah knows how to shoot the ball, and they are going to get a lot of shots in, and I’m going to chip in wherever I can. ’1 The Cougars look.to continue their winning streak at home this w eek versus Clark Community College overall, 2-4 in league) on Jan. 24, and Umpqua Community College (12-6,3 -2 ) on Jan. 27. to"put Clackamas up 86^79. th e c 1 a c k a m a s p rin t.n e t _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ January 24, 2018
