FEBRUARY 04, 2022, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A17
Saxons, however, concluded the period
by scoring five straight points and took
a 23-21 lead into the half.
Despite receiving multiple good
looks, the Celtics were plagued by poor
shooting to start the third quarter. But
Evan Cornell finally got his team off
the snide with a corner trey to cut the
lead to one.
At the midway point of the third
quarter, Gonzalez had missed all six
of his shot attempts. But the junior
point guard's belief in himself never
wavered, as he knocked down a deep,
straightaway triple to put the Celtics
on top 31-29.
Moments later, Gonzalez struck
again from beyond the arc, forcing
South Salem head coach Travis Brown
to burn a timeout.
“My team just kept telling me to
shoot the ball. I was finally glad I was
able to knock a couple down,” Gonzalez
said.
With less than 40 seconds remain-
ing in the third quarter, and the Celtics
holding for the final shot of the period,
it was Long that stepped up for his
team once again.
As the clock was winding down,
Long corralled the kick-out pass from
the paint and nailed a step-back trey at
the buzzer, completing McNary's 12-0
run, putting them up 38-29.
“We would like Carson to shoot
more. I think sometimes he loses his
confidence a little bit. I have told him at
practice before that if he doesn’t shoot,
I will take him out, so it was a bit ironic
that he had some shots that he was
forced to take at the horn,” Kirch said.
“The guys were really excited for him,
and certainly that one at the end of the
third quarter was a huge momentum
swing for us, and probably broke their
back a little bit too.”
What also broke the Saxons back
was McNary's swarming man-to-man
defense that forced South Salem to
attempt most of their shots from the
perimeter.
“We knew coming in that they had
a lot of playmakers, so we were really
focused on containing the ball. We
knew they were going to go on runs,
and we knew they were going to hit
Celtics guard Gunner Smedema, who scored 11 points in the victory, looks to take his defender off the dribble.
Photo by MATT RAWLINGS of Keizertimes
some big shots, we just needed to keep
them to a minimum.” Long said.
The 42 points that the Saxons scored
was their lowest point total in MVC
play and their second lowest offensive
output of the season.
“We knew their personnel and we
knew how they liked to play. When
they are frustrated they like going
one-on-one. They have some kids that
can score, but we tell our guys to make
them earn in and make them score over
us,” Kirch said. “They made some good
baskets, but throughout the course of
32 minutes, if you make someone have
to work, they will get tired late, and that
is exactly what we saw. It’s rewarding
for our guys to see that work pay off on
the defensive end.”
After going more than eight
minutes without a field goal, South
Salem finally broke their drought
thanks to a 3-pointer from Eli Gabriel,
cutting the McNary lead to eight at
43-35 with less than five minutes left in
the contest.
South Salem got the lead down to
as little as four with 3:30 left, but the
Saxons got too aggressive on the other
end, leading to an easy layup from
Smedema after Copeland broke the
double-team.
To make matters worse for South
Salem, after barking at officials for
most of the game, Brown got a tech-
nical foul with two minutes left on the
clock, sealing the Saxons fate.
After going just 2-of-6 from the
foul line in the first three quarters, the
Celtics sank 10 free throws in the final
quarter to earn the double-digit win.
“Once we got that lead, we just con-
tinued to defend and we were finally
able to make some free throws down
the stretch,” Kirch said.
Since league play has
started and we've been
at full strength, we have
gotten better every
single game. We have
really guarded well over
the last couple weeks.
— RYAN KIRCH
McNary head coach
Jando Gonzalez brings the ball up the court. The McNary point guard had a game-high of 14
points.
Photo by MATT RAWLINGS of Keizertimes