TACOMA — The third time facing Rogers wasn’t a charm for South Kitsap. With the No. 4 seed out of the South Puget Sound League and a chance to skip the pigtail round of districts on the line, the Rams prevailed 51-37 at Bellarmine Prep on Saturday.
The Wolves didn’t have much of their offensive mojo working and were beat to too many balls on the glass as the Rogers bigs got their shooters plenty of second and third chances.
Now South Kitsap will have to play a loser-out game on Monday against Todd Beamer at Graham-Kapowsin High School. The winner moves on to face Kentwood in the first round of the 4A West Central/Southwest bi-district tournament.
“I think they played with more effort tonight than we did, all the way around,” said head coach Brian Cox. “That wasn’t our best performance.”
The Rams hit a couple of big 3-pointers early on, but South Kitsap was able to respond with a couple of nice inside baskets by Kyler Kelso and another by Gavin Morkert. Though they didn’t shoot for a much higher percentage, the Rams got some extra looks thanks to their offensive rebounding. Jace Barrett was able to hit a couple of long threes and that put the Wolves behind early.
The rest of the contest played out similarly. South Kitsap could rarely get a run of more than a few points going before Barrett, Lucas Johnson or Matti Turco would douse the run with a bomb from long range.
Morkert had a team-high 15 points and had a solid third quarter in which he was able to get a couple of good looks at the rim after backing down the defense. He had seven points in the third quarter, but unfortunately no other player was able to score in that quarter as Rogers pulled away little by little.
That caps South Kitsap’s regular season with a 9-12 record, including an 8-9 finish in the always-tough SPSL. The records reset on Monday as they take the long bus trip down to Graham to play a game with their season on the line.
“I’m confident we’ll bounce back and play a lot better than we did tonight,” Cox said.
Rogers 51, South Kitsap 37
SK 7 10 7 13 — 37
RG 13 12 13 13 — 51
South Kitsap (37) — Morkert 15, Kelso 10, Walters 6, Mackie 3, Segerman 3.
Rogers (51) — Barrett 22, Johnson 12, Turco 10, Ni. Hansen 4, Rios 3.
South Kitsap’s Jonathan Walters looked for a way to the hoop while sandwiched by two Rogers defenders in their tiebreaker game Saturday. (Mark Krulish/Kitsap News Group)
