One down, seven to go.
That’s what the South Whidbey boys basketball team is playing for — a perfect second-half of the season. After losing their first conference game against Archbishop Murphy on Jan. 14 and breaking a 10-game winning streak, the Falcons are ready for a second run.
South Whidbey began its new winning streak by beating the Sultan Turks 80-74 earlier this week. The win wasn’t easy for the Falcons, who trailed 47-43 at halftime.
“We challenged the kids at halftime tonight,” said Falcon assistant coach Ed Baran. “And they responded to the challenge.”
Sultan took the lead 15-13 on a layup and a free throw from Brian Ordonez late in the first quarter.
The Turks stretched their lead to seven points before Falcon junior forward Zach Comfort made a putback (his only points) and senior guard Riley Newman swished a three-pointer to draw within two points. Sultan senior guard Theo VandenEkart hit a floater in the lane to push his team’s lead to 47-43, and attempted a last-second shot that Newman blocked as the buzzer signaled halftime.
“They [Sultan] want to run,” Baran said. “And when they run, they’re successful. They ran in the first half and they were real successful. Second half, they didn’t run because of our defense, and they weren’t successful.”
Falcon head coach Henry Pope made a lineup change for the second half and put Austin Bennett in for Sean George. Pope credited Baran for the strategy to go small and stay in front of Sultan’s guards, especially VandenEkart.
“[Bennett] turned it around,” Baran said. “We played him on their [Sultan] scorer. Their scorer had six points in the second half; he had 15 the first half. We shut him down, and all the credit goes to Austin [Bennett].”
Baran added: “He competes, and he competes hard and he’s a tough kid and he doesn’t like to get beat. He takes it as a personal challenge.”
The change worked for South Whidbey, which collected three turnovers, including a block by senior Ben Cary, which led to two points for Newman.
The Falcons took the lead on consecutive plays from Bennett. Down 56-53, Bennett stole an errant pass and passed ahead to Russell, who set up a play for Newman to swish another three-pointer. Then Bennett spun in a baseline layup for South Whidbey’s first lead since the first quarter, 58-56, which the Falcons held onto.
Newman gave the Falcons their largest lead at 69-59 on a 45-foot pass from Sam Lee for a breakaway layup.
South Whidbey tried to put away the Turks, but Sultan hung around and traded baskets. Turks senior forward Dillan Pruitt made consecutive layups to close within six points. Ordonez was fouled and Sultan was in the single free-throw bonus but missed the first shot. Hatton rebounded, was fouled and hit the front end of his free throws before the second shot bounced out to South Whidbey. Newman drove and scored a floater with a foul.
Then the Turks fouled South Whidbey’s dribblers on three straight plays in the attempt for a turnover.
Newman made 6-of-8 free throws and Russell made 2-of-4 in the final two minutes, and Bennett collected another steal to close the game, 80-74. Russell had 13 points, 8 assists and 5 steals.
Newman finished with 46 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 7 steals and 2 blocks. In 15 years of South Whidbey basketball, Pope called Newman’s performance the finest he’s ever seen.
South Whidbey collected 16 steals in what Pope called “one great half of defense.”
“We wanted to play a lot better defense this game,” Bennett said, referencing the change from the previous loss to Archbishop Murphy. “But we came out, did what we had to do and got the win, so we’re happy with it.”
Bennett was assigned to defend VandenEkart in South Whidbey’s man-to-man defense. VandenEkart scored six second-half points with Bennett defending him. VandenEkart and Sam Hatton each scored a team-high tying 21 points. Bennett scored 5 points.
“They put me on him [VandenEkart] and I just knew what I had to,” Bennett said.
“I know what he likes to do and I played as hard as I could and it worked out.”
Another halftime change came without a rotation change. Falcon senior co-captain Tyler “Chuck” Norris’ shots swirled, twirled and rimmed out in the first half. In the second half, the Falcon forward found space to pivot and finished with 8 points, 8 rebounds and
3 blocks. He also took a charge early in the fourth quarter that led to Newman hitting another three-pointer to extend their lead to 6 points.
“I think I was kind of, just like, ‘I’m not going to put up with this anymore’ and decided to take it to the rack,” Norris said.
The win kept the Falcons in contention for first place with Archbishop Murphy. South Whidbey improved to 7-1 in Cascade Conference and 11-3 overall. Sultan fell to 2-6; 5-9 overall. In the first half of the season, the Falcons defeated the Turks in Sultan 59-52 on Dec. 14.
South Whidbey traveled to Arlington to face Lakewood (3-5; 6-8) on Friday, Jan. 21, after the Record went to press. The Falcons won the previous meeting 64-50 at Erikson Gymnasium on Dec. 7.
