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By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Medical Lake can't catch up after slow start at Lakeside

Playoffs assured for Medical Lake; will meet Riverside at Freeman, Feb. 12 in tiebreaker

 

Last updated 2/12/2015 at 1:46pm



The Medical Lake boys’ basketball team seemed to learn a lesson last week.

As they chased after trying to earn a first-place tie in the Northeast A League standings, leaving things to the last minute, or in this case, the last week, does not pay off.

The Cardinals (10-3 NEA, 14-5 overall) split their games last week, beating Newport 66-50 at home before falling at co-leader Lakeside 74-59 Friday in Suncrest.

“You gotta’ win early at home so you don’t have to go to someone else’s gym and try to make it happen,” Medical Lake head coach Arnold Brown said. The Cardinals lost to the Eagles 57-52, Jan. 13.

Lakeside (11-2, 16-3) was playing on Senior Night and that played into the Eagles’ success Brown said.

“It was their Senior Night and they had a lot of energy flying around,” Brown said. “Obviously they knew what was at stake and played with a lot of emotion the whole night.”

The Eagles had just a 16-12 lead after the first quarter Friday, but they took advantage of the foul trouble Medical Lake found itself in in the second quarter and raced to a 22-8 advantage in the period and led 38-20 at the half.

“We had some foul trouble, Tellas (Johnson) and Donte (Brown) both had three fouls in the second quarter,” Brown said. “We had to sit them out.”

Medical Lake, which got a game-high 24 points from Johnson, came out of the locker room on a mission, outscoring Lakeside 24-18, cutting into the lead, but certainly not enough. Jaelon Stith added 11, the only other Cardinal in double-figures. Ryan Quigley led the Eagles with 20 points.

“We came out hard in the third quarter and picked up the pressure, but obviously the foul situation limits some of that,” Brown said.

The rebounding again was an issue, Brown said. ”Second shots, they pounded us on the boards again.” Medical Lake got it back to a seven-point game but never came any closer.

Against Newport (5-8,10-9) on Tuesday, Medical Lake got a big night from Stith who had a game-high 24 points, while Johnson added 10.

“Jaelon had a monster half with 20 or something (points),” Brown said.

Medical Lake breezed to a 39-24 first half lead. “We moved the ball well,” Brown said. “Cole (Soliday) gave us some big spark off the bench,” adding eight points.

The Cardinals wrapped up their regular season this past Tuesday, Feb. 10 against Riverside (11-2, 16-3) another team they have been chasing in the standings.

Brown hopes their Senior Night will provide some impetus in what was a very pivotal contest with big playoff ramifications.

“If we win Tuesday we have to turn around and play them again Thursday,” Brown said. That’s a battle not only for second place but also a first round bye in the playoffs.

Should the Cards not beat the Rams Tuesday, their next game would be on Saturday. “We’ll probably get familiar with Riverside in the next couple of days,” Brown said.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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