The Hood River Valley boys’ basketball team went on the road Thursday to Pendleton High School to take on the Buckaroos, who are fighting for the bottom seat in IMC post-season. The Eagles took a 68-49 loss mainly at the hands of Pendleton’s Tucker Whitten and Blaine Goodman, who combined to score over half of the teams’ points. Whitten finished with 23 and Goodman with 14.
And for the Eagles, standout junior post KC Christensen tallied a team-high 18 points by shooting seven for ten from the field and four for four from the line. Juan Zuniga and Tim Chance followed with eight points each. Pendleton effectively shut Zuniga down, limiting his scoring to one field goal and six free-throws.
After keeping pace with the Buckaroos in the first quarter, the Eagles’ low shooting percentage gave the home team room to breathe with a 32-23 lead at halftime.
Hood River shot only 35 percent from the field in the first half and 37 percent in the game. The Eagles matched Pendleton 16 points to 16 in the third quarter, but in the fourth they went cold again and scored only 10 points to Pendleton’s 20.
The boys have four more games in their schedule; two are at home and two are away (at Summit and Hermiston). The final two home games are against Mountain View on Feb. 15 and Redmond on Feb. 24 (varsity starts at 7 p.m.).
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