2B | SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2021 | SIUSLAW NEWS
Sailors
from 1B
minute of the quarter, and
that gave them the momen-
tum from there.”
The Warriors led 11-5 go-
ing into the second quarter,
where Siletz extended its
lead even more.
“I don’t think we handled
the pressure very well, which
led us to struggle initiating
the offense, and our tran-
sition defense was pretty
poor,” Wolgamott said.
By the end of the first half,
Siletz was up 27-14.
The Warriors continued
to hold their ground in the
third quarter, keeping the
13-point spread and finish-
ing the third up 36-23. How-
ever, the Sailors still weren’t
so far behind they couldn’t
come back.
“One thing I know about
this team is they don’t quit
no matter what,” said Wol-
gamott. “They proved that
Siuslaw
from 1B
last year.
Siuslaw qualifyied eight
wrestlers for state, including
two girls — one of whom,
current
Siuslaw
junior
Hayden Muller, came home
with a fourth-place medal.
On the boys side, of the
six who advanced to state,
then-senior Matthew Horril-
lo placed third, and current
senior Elijah LaCosse also
placed third.
“So, we have a returning
medalist on both the girls
side and the boys side this
year. It’s a lot of great leader-
ship,” Wartnik said.
In addition to Muller and
LaCosse, Wartnik has sev-
eral other athletes returning
who performed well last year
and are showing great prom-
ise this year.
“We had a conference
champion last year, Chris-
tian Newlan (senior), at 185
pounds,” he explained. “Ryan
Jennings (senior) placed
Viks
from 1B
how we want to play this year
in our shortened season.”
One thing the Vikings have
going for them this year is size
and depth. “Luckily, we’ve got
a very deep team,” said Perry,
“and, like I said, most of those
guys are coming back from
the team last year. They are
similar concepts as we ran
before, so they’re not going to
have to be playing catch up
too much.”
Siuslaw has a full — albeit
shortened — schedule this
season with 14 games sched-
uled, which is 10 fewer games
than normal.
“But it’s 14 more than I
thought we were going to
have, so we’re super thankful
for that. And I’m just really
happy for the seniors we have
on our team that are going to
get an opportunity to play
basketball,” said Perry.
Perry has a very mature
team this year, and they are
poised to do quite well.
“As far as returning guys,
we’ve got Braydon (Thornton)
coming back, who was a first
team all-league player in bas-
ketball as a sophomore,” noted
Perry. “We’ve got Brody Terry,
Jacob Foskett and Liam
McClellan, who were all hon-
orable mention.”
Perry added that there are
other players on the team just
as valuable that maybe weren’t
recognized by the other
coaches in the league last sea-
son as an all-league player.
“There are a lot of juniors
that played a lot of JV time
last year that I expect to put in
big varsity minutes for us this
year,” Perry said.
This last week’s games are
all non-league preseason
games, with next week kick-
ing off league play. Siuslaw’s
first game was on Tuesday
again Tuesday. I still liked
our chances going into
fourth quarter; if we could
just get a few stops, and then
a few baskets, I felt like the
momentum would have
shifted a bit.”
Wolgamott switched up
his team’s defense from a 2-3
to a 3-2, putting more pres-
sure on the Warriors’ guards,
and utilizing the strength
and speed of JJ Neece up
top. Unfortunately, as mo-
mentum picked up and the
team got more aggressive,
with just over 4 minutes left,
Neece fouled out — the fifth
coming from a charge that
resulted from skillfully steal-
ing the ball and taking it up
the court on a fast break.
Said Wolgamott, “JJ was
aggressive going to the hole,
and I’m never going to be
mad about that.”
The Sailors were at a ma-
jor disadvantage forced to
play the remainder of the
game with only four men on
the court against Siletz’s five.
“At that point, we just had
to try our best to compete,”
admitted Wolgamott, “and
I felt like they did. We just
couldn’t get any closer, and
they were able to extend the
lead.”
Despite the loss, Wolga-
mott is optimistic about the
remainder of the season.
“I felt like we saw what we
need to work on to compete
in this league,” he said. “I
still like our chances to be a
top team in the league, but
we’ve definitely got a way to
go. But the boys are resilient
and they’re up for the chal-
lenge.”
In two weeks, Mapleton
will have two additional
players on the team. But
for now, as Wolgamott ex-
plained, “We’ve just got to
keep our head above water.”
Neece led the team in
scoring with 13 points,
with Jeremy Bender and AJ
Moso each picking up 8, and
Keevyn Walker picking up
his first 3-pointer as a high
school athlete.
“I was really pleased with
him, the way he competed
his very first game in high
school,” said Wolgamott. “He
definitely has this poise and
calmness about him when
he’s on the court, and you
don’t see that with a lot of
freshmen, especially starting
their very first varsity game.”
In all, Wolgamott is look-
ing ahead and staying fo-
cused on the prize.
“We have the talent to
compete. We don’t have a
lot of depth, but the five we
have on that court — I feel
very confident matching
up against any other team’s
starting five.”
The Sailors played Thurs-
day night at Eddyville (after
press printing deadlines.)
Their next game is away,
at Triangle Lake, this Mon-
day (May 24) starting at 5:30
p.m.
third at conference last year,
he was one win away from
medaling last year, and he’s
looking great. We have Ma-
son Buss (sophomore), he
placed second at conference
last year, and again, another
really strong competitor.
Another team member in-
cludes highly touted Yoskar
DeLaMora
(sophomore),
who placed sixth last year in
the region.
Aside from these front-
line wrestlers, Wartnik has
a team full of athletes who
come ready to cause a ruckus
this season.
“Hunter Petterson (soph-
omore) placed fourth in
conference last year, and
he’s a strong performer,” said
Wartnik. “We have Cayden
Gray (sophomore) in the
lightweights with Yoskar,
and he’s looks like he’s going
to have a strong year. John
Corser (junior) and Mi-
chael Schick (senior) are in
the middle weights, they’re
doing a great job, they’re
training hard and growing.
“JC Gentry (junior) is going
to join Christian Newlan in
the upper weights, he’s doing
a great job, and so is Cort
Waggoner (freshman).”
The Viks also have sever-
al freshmen this year who
could factor in substantially.
Among them, Dayne Muller
and Brayden Linton.
Wartnik said he also has a
strong team building on the
girls’ side as well.
“Rosa
Velasco-Mendez
(freshman), I think is go-
ing to be a real treat,” he
said. “We just have a really
balanced, fun team. Lucian
Murphy is a sophomore, an-
other hard worker, and Ari-
anna Brown (junior) is one
of our hardest workers. She
has been training all year,
and she should be a great
compliment to Hayden on
the girls’ side.”
At this point, Wartnik has
three girls and 14 to 15 boys.
This year will be slightly
different as far as the sched-
uling of competitions, in
that there will not be tourna-
ments as there would be in a
normal season.
“It just seems smarter,
because you keep the num-
bers down, less likelihood of
anyone contracting COVID,”
he said. “So, that’s kind of
the vision, and at the end of
the year, we’ll have a couple
of tournaments, hopefully
qualify some people for state,
go to state and just make the
most of every moment.”
For Wartnik, the biggest
joy is the opportunity to
work with his seniors for
their final year at Siuslaw.
“For me, this year is just a
gift from God to be able to
enjoy these people one more
time,” he said. “I’m glad
that COVID didn’t shut us
down.”
The Viks’ first meet was
last night at Sutherlin (after
press deadlines) and again
today at the Marshfield Invi-
tational at 2 p.m.
Siuslaw’s first home meet
is this Tuesday at 5 p.m.
night (May 18), where they
hosted Pleasant Hill at home.
According
to
Perry,
“Pleasant Hill was a very tal-
ented team that is going to
cause some difficulties for
every team they play this year.
Our press put them on their
heels, and we were able to play
our style of up-tempo [ball] to
establish a strong half-time
lead.”
The Viks were up 37-26 at
the half.
“In the second half,”
explained Perry, “we started
making mental mistakes that
allowed Pleasant Hill to get
back into the game. We were
making silly fouls that would
result in them getting to the
free throw line and scoring
points without making them
work for.”
By the end of the third
quarter, the Billies had cut the
lead, but the Vikings were still
up 50-43. Then, at the end of
the game, what should have
only been a 2-point shot for
the Billies was called as a
3-pointer, allowing Pleasant
Hill to tie the game and send
it into overtime.
“The end of regulation was
a wild one, and probably one
of the weirdest basketball sit-
uations I’ve been in,” noted
Perry. “The call being
reversed, and then reversed
again to send us to overtime.
The referee knew he made a
mistake, but they had to live
with the call that was made
— so, we played an extra 4
minutes.”
Fortunately, Siuslaw did
not relent, and took the victo-
ry at the game’s end, winning
by 1 point, 72-71.
“This is a game that we
may have lost last year with a
younger team,” explained
Perry, “but all of our players
have been in these crunch
time situations, so we were
able to deal with the pres-
sure.”
Thornton was player of the
game, scoring over a third of
the team’s points with 23, in
addition to 5 rebounds, 3
assists and a whopping 12
steals. Terry put up major
points for the Viks as well,
scoring 19.
The following day (May
19), the Vikings returned to
their home court to face
North Bend’s Bulldogs.
Siuslaw came out of the
gates strong on defense,
Thornton picking up 2 steals
less than a minute into the
game. Terry was the first to
score for the Viks, followed
shortly
thereafter
by
Thornton, and the team con-
tinued to dominate for the
remainder of the quarter, fin-
ishing 14-6.
The Vikings kept the pres-
sure on for the remainder of
the half. Junior Avery Hart
nabbed 3 rebounds and 7
points in the second quarter,
dominating the boards with
Foskett, who also picked up 2
rebounds in the quarter.
One of the more skillfully
memorable plays of the game
occurred with just over 2
minutes left in the half, when
Mattson stole the ball, setting
up a successful alley-oop
assist to Thornton, who — 10
seconds later — stole the ball
and passed it off to junior
Harrison Hubner for a layup,
scoring the Vikings 4 points
on fast breaks in a matter of
seconds.
The boys continued main-
tain control throughout the
fourth quarter and were able
to finish the game defeating
the Bulldogs soundly, 64-34.
Thornton came away with
16 points, Terry with 11, and
other members of the team
contribut-ed a great deal as
well. Izacc and Skyler Mattson
each picked up 5 points, as
did senior Tyrone Krohn,
Avery Hart scored 9, and
junior Aiden Jefferis scored 7
for the Viks. McClellan picked
up 3, while senior Clay Kra-
mer and Hubner each picked
up 2 points.
The Vikings’ next game is
Tuesday, on the road at
Marist, beginning at 5:45 p.m.
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