A good-sized crowd of fans made their way to Willamette University on Friday night to watch opening contests of the Capital City Classic basketball tournament. Here are some brief overviews of the three games played, including those involving West Salem and South Salem.
Beaverton 53, Sherwood 36: The two teams in the opening tourney game have been successful over the years, but this contest belonged to the Beaverton Beavers, who raced out to an early lead, and cruised to a 53-36 victory at Willamette University.
Sherwood struggled offensively, scoring in single digits in three quarters. Beaverton began with a strong opening period, taking an 18-9 lead.
The struggling Bowman used improved defense in the second period, but was outscored 9-7 in the second. The Beavers led it 25-17.
In the third, Sherwood put up 14 points—but gave up 15 to Beaverton, and the lead was stretched to nine.
The door was slammed shut in the fourth, when the Beavers outscored the Bowmen 13-5, but took their foot off the gas late to settle for the 17 -oint victory.
Jalen Childs of Beaverton led all scorers with 20 points, and added 6 rebounds. Brady Rice contributed 11 points for the victors. The Beavers shot 41 percent from the field.
Sherwood’s Matthew Verkamp had 12 points for Sherwood, while teammate Breyan Kelley chipped in 11. The Bowman managed to connect on just 34 percent for the game but hit 36 percent of their three-point shots.
Beaverton will play top-ranked West Linn in the winner’s bracket Monday at 7:00 pm. Sherwood will tangle with South Salem in the consolation bracket Monday morning at 11:30 am.
West Salem 80, Regis 52: West Salem is a 6A basketball squad that has good size, but has struggled in the preseason due to injuries; Regis is a 2A basketball power that has several good shooters, but few big men to work in the paint.
The Rams gave West all they could handle for a half, but the bigger Titan squad wore down Regis, taking control in the second half for an impressive 80-52 victory.
West struggled several times in the first half with turnovers and poor shooting. Regis was right on the heels of the Titans, trailing West 16-14 at the end of one.
The Titan offensive front line helped West forge a 36-31 advantage at the half. Coach Travis Myers pointed to post 6-3 junior Philip Goodrich as the team’s glue through those opening two quarters.
“Philip did a great job in the first half of finishing inside,” said Myers.
Goodrich scored on a variety of post-up spin moves to get through the under-sized Regis defense. He finished with 15 points.
In the second half, the determined Titans attacked the Regis defense with extra effort—using their decided height advantage to extend the lead to 14 points at 46-32. Matthew Luke—who finished with 14 points, successfully fired up four threes in the second half to help expand the increasingly large advantage. Jackson Leach, who had 15 points, also contributed with several quick slashes to the bucket. He had 15 points for West.
“Matthew is a catch and shoot specialist who can get hot at any time—and if he continues to do (what he did tonight), he will really help us going forward,” says Myers
“Jackson could have scored more but missed some easy ones in the second half and forced a couple in the first half.”
Despite his struggles, Leach was named player of the game, not only scoring 15 points, but also adding seven rebounds and four assists.
The victory for West Salem is their first after four straight losses to open the season. Regis lost for the first time after three straight victories to start their basketball year. Isaiah Koehnke had 22 points for the Rams.
West Salem will now face the winner of Saturday’s Silverton vs. Wilsonville contest which takes Saturday night at 7:00 pm. The second-round contest is slated for Monday at 5:30 pm. Regis will see the loser of that game in the consolation bracket on Monday at 1:00 pm.
West Linn 78, South Salem 55: Even though the final margin of victory was 23 points, South Salem Travis Brown was pleased with the overall effort of his squad in the 78-55 loss in the last game of the night Friday in the Capital City Classic tournament.
But the one guy South couldn’t corral was West Linn star Jackson Shelstad. The University of Oregon-bound point guard tallied 33 points on 14-22 shooting, while also adding seven rebounds and twelve assists. He was named player of the game.
South Salem coach Travis Brown says Shelstad is very difficult force to contain.
“We did pretty well against the other players,” says Brown, “but Shelstad was hard to stop.”
“If you look at the numbers, out of his 33 points scored, 26 were recorded on layups.”
Some offensive assistance was provided for Shelsted by Lions post Adrian Mosley (14 points) and wing Sam Leavitt (11).
Brown also admits that his team faded significantly in the second quarter, going scoreless for six straight minutes to conclude that period.
South had come back from an early onslaught by West Linn to make it 21-15 after one quarter.
Two minutes into the second period, the Saxons had scored the first six points to cut the Lions advantage to 23-19. But just like that, South couldn’t buy a bucket.
“We did well in the first, third and fourth quarters,” admits Brown. “The second quarter we quit believing in ourselves.”
Brown says his team began settling for jump shots, when they really aren’t that sort of team.
From the 6:10 mark until the horn to end the half, the Saxons failed to score a single point. West Linn tallied 20 points in that same timeframe, to forge a 43-19 lead. South managed just four points for the entire period.
In the third quarter, South Salem watched the lead balloon to 33 points, as Shelstad and company slashed to the bucket and nailed three pointers to peak out at 59-28 with just over two minutes left in the period.
South rallied back to trail by only 24 points, at 61-37 as the third quarter came to an end.
The two teams traded punches metaphorically in the fourth quarter, but the West Linn advantage was simply too much for South Salem to overcome. South’s Rylan Davidson completed a three-point play to reduce the West Linn lead to 19 points with about six minutes left at 61-42.
The Lions rebuilt the lead and then some—using Shelstad and a whole host of West Linn players, including Leavitt, Mosely, and Jalen Snook—all whom scored the bulk of the points. The lead grew again to 78-53.
The final score was 78-55.
Rylan Davidson topped all Saxon scorers with 12 points. Teagan Scott tallied 11 points, and Greg Comer added 10.
South Salem moves to the consolation bracket, with a game Monday against the loser of Silverton vs. Wilsonville. That game will take place at 1:00 pm Saturday. West Linn’s championship bracket game is at 5:30 pm on Monday, against the winner of Wilsonville/Silverton.