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PAGE A14, KEIZERTIMES, MARCH 6, 2020 KEIZERTIMES.COM Saxons spoil Celtics senior night when we were struggling to By MATT RAWLINGS score. They’re a great team Of the Keizertimes Senior night featured one with multiple offensive of McNary’s best defensive threats,” McNary head coach performances of the season. Elizabeth Doran said. Doutt had fi ve straight Unfortunately for the Celt- points to start ics, the same couldn’t be the game out. said for the “ I thought Then, McNary offense. post Bekah our effort and McNary Grimmer had failed to intensity were back-to-back reach the good. We hoops as South 30-point Salem ended mark for just carried out the period with the second the defensive just a two-point time in the lead. conference scout, but The Saxons season as the their defensive had trouble sixth-ranked with McNary’s Saxons de- pressure made 2-3 zone in feated the the early going. us a little tired Celtics 56- The defensive scheme espe- 29 on Friday, offensively... ” Feb. 29. cially affected — Elizabeth Doran, South L e a h Salem McNary head coach Doutt was point guard the only Hillary James. McNary James, the player in double-fi gures with Mountain Valley Conference 10 points. player of the year, was held to “I thought our effort and just fi ve points on 2-for-12 intensity were good. We car- shooting. ried out our defensive scout, “I thought we did a good but their defensive pressure job of lowering Hillary’s made us a little tired of- points, which is what our fensively and I think that Please see SENIOR, Page A11 showed in the third quarter KEIZERTIMES/Matt Rawlings Bekah Grimmer goes up for a shot after battling for position on the low block. Grimmer fi nished with eight points in McNary’s 56-29 loss to South Salem on Friday, Feb. 28. Ruberto and Villavazo pick up wins at state KEIZERTIMES/Matt Rawlings Nate Meithof drives past a South Salem defender on Friday, Feb. 28. McNary falls fl at in second half against South Salem By MATT RAWLINGS Of the Keizertimes What started as a competi- tive ballgame got out of hand on the scoreboard in the sec- ond half. McNary had the score within six early in the third quarter, but second-ranked South Salem outscored the Celtics 38-11 in the last 13 minutes of the game to earn the 83-50 victory in the regu- lar season fi nale on Friday Feb. 29. Nate Meithof led the Celt- ics with 18 points and Jando Gonzalez added 11, but Mc- Nary had no answer for South Salem’s Trey Galbraith, who lit up the gym for 39 points and set the Saxons new school re- cord for 3-pointers in a game (10). Gonzalez, a freshman, talk- ed about the challenge of guarding a 19-year old senior in Galbraith. “It was a tough. He had a lot of combo moves and he was just shooting from every- where. It was a challenge, but I believe that this experience will help me grow as a player,” Gonzalez said. After losing their top play- er from last season in Jaden Nielsen-Skinner, the Saxons reloaded with six incoming transfers to easily win the Mountain Valley Conference with a 14-0 league record — only three of their league games were within single-dig- its. McNary gained the upper hand early in the opening quarter thanks to a triple from Gonzalez and back-to-back hoops from Tyler O’Connor. A fl oater from Meithof and a bucket in the post from O’Connor put McNary on top 11-8, but the Saxons went on a 12-0 run to take a nine- point lead. The Celtics, how- ever, were able to score the last fi ve points of the quarter to cut the lead to four. “We were playing more like a team on both sides of the court,” Meithof said. “We had really good ball move- ment.” A trio of McNary turn- overs led to some easy baskets for the Saxons. But after trail- ing by double-digits early in the second quarter, the Celtics fought back. A baseline triple and a nif- ty lefty fl oater from Gonzalez trimmed the defi cit to 32-26. Meithof and Gunner Smede- ma each hit jumpers before the end of the half, but South Salem still went to the break with a 40-32 advantage. Despite the defi cit, Mc- Nary head coach Ryan Kirch was quite pleased with the fi rst half effort he saw from his squad. “I thought we did an un- believable job in the fi rst half. They hit a couple of deep threes and we had a couple turnovers in the backcourt, but I thought we executed our game plan well and our kids played hard,” Kirch said. The two teams traded hoops to begin the third quar- ter. A put-back bucket from Please see CELTS, Page A10 By MATT RAWLINGS Of the Keizertimes The McNary wrestling squad sent four athletes to the state tournament, which took place at Memorial Coliseum Feb. 28-29. Although they weren’t able to get anyone to the podium, the Celtics got multiple match victories form sophomore Aldo Villavazo and freshman Hunter Ruberto. Villavazo, a 220-pounder, advanced in the bracket by re- ceiving a bye in the fi rst round before facing off against Eric Sheldon from Reynolds. Villavazo held the lead late in the match, but Sheldon got a two-point takedown in the waning moments of regulation, tying the match at 10-10 and forcing overtime. However, Sheldon had been called for stalling earlier in the match, and Villavazo took full advantage. “Aldo did a really nice job of pushing the pace in over- time,” McNary interim head coach Sam Martin said. “The Reynolds kid was pretty timid.” As Villavazo continued to go after Sheldon in the overtime period, Sheldon tried to back away every time, forcing the offi cial to hit him with another stalling call, which gave Villa- vazo the 11-10 sudden victory, as well as a berth in the quar- terfi nals. Villavazo ended up getting pinned in the third round of his quarterfi nal match, then again in the consolation bracket, but that didn’t take away from what he was able to accomplish in his fi rst ever state meet. “He proved that he be- longed. He put his head down and got to work. He is already pumped for next year and I can’t wait to see what he will do,” Martin said. Ruberto, who competed at 145 pounds, lost via major de- cision in his opening bout. But the freshman bounced back in a big way in his next two matches. Ruberto got a bye in the fi rst consolation round, then won an 8-3 decision over Sprague’s Devin Jeanes. In the following match, Ruberto gained a dom- inating victory over Aloha’s Logan Moore, earning a fall early in the second round. “Hunter was in a tradition- ally tough weight class, so to win two matches was defi nitely a huge confi dence builder for him,” Martin said. “I think he had a lot of nerves going into his fi rst match, but the way he responded was awesome.” Ruberto was eliminated from the tournament after get- ting suffering a fall to Oregon City’s Austin Nekvapil. The Celtics also had Gilbert Parra wrestling in his second straight state meet. Parra just missed a victory in his fi rst match, which was a 3-2 loss Uriel Rodriguez from Centu- ry. The McNary senior was un- able to recover from the defeat as he lost his second match via major decision. Dalila Hernandez competed as a freshman in the 190-pound girls tournament, but got pinned in the second round of both her matches. KEIZERTIMES/Matt Rawlings McNary’s Aldo Villavazo (blue singlet) advanced to the quarterfi nal match at the state tournament.
