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About The Hood River news. (Hood River, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 2020)
hoodrivernews.com Wednesday, January 8, 2020 A7 HOOD RIVER NEWS | Hood River, Ore. SPORTS Photo by Gabriel Bravo HORIZON sophomore Josh Rogers (23) bodies up against St. Stephen’s senior Joel Radigan in the fourth quarter Saturday, Dec. 4. Hawks win against Archers in intense overtime By GABRIEL BRAVO News staff writer In a nail-biting, stressful and emotional overtime, Horizon Christian School’s varsity boys basketball team defeated St. Stephen’s Academy 55-53 Sat- urday. This marks the Hawks’ third consecutive overtime game. John Jackson, head coach for the Archers, said he knew they would face a tough team. “We hung around within five points pretty much for the whole game,” Jackson said. “We had our chances to win in regulation, we had a chance to win in over time we just couldn’t quite get the job done. But I couldn’t be prouder of my guys.” In the first quarter the game was evenly matched with both teams trading buckets and rarely turning over the ball. The Archers had the upper hand at the end of the first quarter with a score of 12-10. Horizon responded in the second quarter scoring 20 points and conceding 13. The Hawks entered the half with a lead of 30-25. With Horizon outperform- ing them, St. Stephen’s didn’t throw in the towel and kept hustling and working to tie the game. St. Stephen’s closed down on the lead and finished the third quarter trailing Hori- zon 42-39. Finally, St. Stephen’s work paid off when they took the lead in the fourth quarter with three minutes left to play.In dramatic fashion, the Hawks tied the game at 49 points and pushed the game into over- time. Horizon sophomore Josh Rogers said their previous overtime encounters prepared them for this game. “That was our third overtime game in a row,” Rogers said. “So, it’s really good for us to use those rough situations and get experience of those times of ‘this is it. We got to go now.’ But I thought we executed well. We all stayed in it, stayed mentally prepared and we got the win.” Despite the win Darrin Lin- gel, head coach for the Hawks, said he thought the team played okay. With the team being gone for the holidays there was a noticeable perfor- mance decrease in the team, Lingel said. “You could tell we were rusty. We haven’t had a game for a while,” Lingel said. “Over- all, this wasn’t a great rhythm game. I didn’t feel comfort- able with this game. We’ve done a better job offensively in other games but it’s part of the growth and I’m glad we had a game prior to league play.” Illness within the Hawk squad also deteriorated the team’s performance, Lingel said. Leading scorers for Horizon include Rogers with 17 points, junior Kai Robertson at 13 and sophomore Alex Whitaker with 12. Top scorers for St. Stephen’s include senior Joel Radigan with 22 points junior Daniel Maharjan with 20 and junior Seth Bergeron with six. The Hawk squad is back in action Friday, Dec. 10 as they host Mitchell/Spray at 7:30 p.m. Photo by Gabriel Bravo HRV sophomore Emanuel Romero (23) attempts to drive the ball to the rim with Reynolds junior Brandon Buffington (0) closely guarding him Friday, Dec. 3. HRV fights good fight but loses to Reynolds By GABRIEL BRAVO News staff writer On Friday, Hood River Val- ley’s varsity boys basketball team fought a good fight but was defeated by Reynolds High School 63-58. This was HRV’s final game against a 6A school in the season. Ted Aubin, head coach for the Raiders, said they planned on limiting scor- ing opportunities for senior Noah Webster and junior Ian Searcy. “We were really focusing on our defensive fundamen- tals, trying to get in the gaps and prevent them from driv- ing,” Aubin said. “I thought we did a really good job in the first half of that.” The Raiders tipped-off the game with 10 unanswered points. Their strong offense gave the Raiders a 17-7 lead at the end of the first quarter. “A b i g t a l k i n g p o i n t throughout the game was adjusting to what they were doing,” Christopher Dirks, HRV head coach, said. “They kept hitting threes in the first quarter and we took too long to change our mindset to take that away.” HRV responded in the second quarter outscoring Reynolds with 22 points and limiting them to 17. In the final possessions of the second quarter the Eagles swiped the ball, scored and prevented the Raiders from scoring. These series of events riled and fired up the crowd as the teams headed to the locker rooms with a score of 34-29 favoring Reynolds. The energy and momen- tum that HRV created before halftime carried over to the third quarter as they out- scored the away team 13-11. One HRV player who over- powered Reynold defenders was junior Emilio Castaneda. Castaneda easily rebounded and blocked a few Raider shots. “I have been very pleased with Emilio’s progress this year and how he has changed his mindset when he gets the ball in the key,” Dirks said. “I think come league play he could be a great weapon for us.” In the final quarter HRV was outscored by two points. HRV had two three-point at- tempts by sophomore Eman- uel Romero and Webster but both could not score. “I think Hood River real- ly competed well and they never gave up,” Aubin said. “I know they got down, but I felt like they brought a lot more energy in the second half and there was no quit in them. I think they can be very proud in their effort. Disappointing with the re- sults but there’s stuff to build on there for sure.” The Eagle squad returns to the court Friday, Jan. 10 as they host Parkrose High School at 6:30 p.m.
