MAUPIN – In front of a capacity crowd Saturday in Maupin, the state’s No. 4 and 5 boys’ basketball teams engaged in a 32-minute fight to the finish, where every possession counted and every play was magnified.
The Sherman Huskies built a 12-point third-quarter lead, but the South Wasco County Redsides battled back in the final period and had a late layup attempt bounce off the rim and out, allowing Sherman to hold on for a 54-52 Big Sky Conference victory.
With one minute and 31 seconds remaining, SWC senior Ellis Rager scored on a rebound and putback to inch the Redsides to a 54-50 deficit.
On Sherman’s next possession, Treve Martin had the ball in the paint, but SWC post Ty Herlocker tied tied him up to force a jump ball call, giving the Redsides possession down four points with 1:17 left.
On SWC’s next time up the floor, Herlocker retrieved a pass inside and scored a layup with 42.4 seconds to make it 54-52.
Since SWC only had three team fouls in the late stages of the fourth quarter, they committed four consecutive fouls to get into the bonus and send Sherman to the line.
Sherman point guard Jacob Justesen misfired on the front-end free throw with 18.3 seconds on the clock and SWC regained possession with a chance to tie or take the lead.
SWC worked the ball inside to Herlocker, but his point-blank layup clanged off the rim and out, and Justesen was sent back to the line with 4.8 seconds left.
The sophomore missed the front-end free throw, and Rager grabbed the rebound, but the clock was winding down.
His long pass was tipped and rolled out of bounds as time expired.
In the opening quarter, Isaiah Coles jumpstarted the Huskies with 11 points to give his team a 16-12 lead.
Rager scored a basket to move the Redsides to a 19-16 deficit at the 5:52 mark, but ended the half on a 9-5 run to go out in front, 28-21 at the half.
Travis Hayes sank a 3-pointer at the 7:33 mark of the third quarter, but Huskies regained control with an 11-3 rally, capped by a bank shot by Treve Martin and a 3-pointer from Justesen to swell the lead to 39-27 with 2:44 on the clock.
Brody Myers hit the final field goal of the third quarter, but Sherman was still ahead 41-31 with one quarter left to play.
Myers hit another 3-pointer on an assist from Devan Dammann to get the Redsides to within 43-39 with 5:53 remaining in the final period, but Justesen hit a 3-pointer and Rager answered with a putback to run the count to 46-41 with five minutes left.
Hayes hit a 15-foot bank shot, Max Martin drilled a jumper and Dammann added a 3-pointer with 3:49 left to creep SWC to a 49-46 deficit.
Up 50-46, Justesen scored a layup to give the Huskies a six-point lead, and then Myers hit a jump shot and was fouled, but missed the free throw to keep it a four-point game, Sherman 52-48 with 2:38 left.
Coles scored 20 points, four in the second half, for a team-high.
Justesen added 13 points, Max Martin added 10 and Keenan Coles totaled four points, for the Huskies who shot 20 of 52 from the field and made 10 of 15 from the line.
“I think the issue was we started to slow it down as a team and that really cost us. That’s not what we do,” said Sherman coach Bill Blevins. “When you start doing what you don’t normally do, then it plays in the hands of the other team. We fell into that trap. Hats off to South Wasco. We had that double-digit lead, but they never gave up, they crashed the boards hard and they made some really tough shots. It was just a good high school basketball game. I feel fortunate to come out of it with a win on the road.”
Hayes scored 20 points on 6 of 16 shooting to lead the No. 5 Redsides (12-2, 3-1), who shot 20 of 53 from the field, 5 of 11 from 3-point territory and 7 of 12 from the line.
Rager had eight points, eight rebounds and three steals, Dammann tacked on eight points and four assists, and Myers finished with seven points, five assists, eight rebounds and three steals.
“Kudos to all of them. That is the strength of the team. They really play as a team and everybody plays a role,” said SWC head coach Jim Hull. “Travis really took control of a lot of things tonight. We called a lot of things from the bench tonight, we don’t always do that, but when we made those adjustments, the team executed it well. They got the ball where it needed to be and a lot of those was Travis taking the shots and taking advantage of a certain matchup. If we are to continue to do that, continuing down the road, we are looking good.”
With the win, Sherman (10-4, 5-0) moved up to No. 3 and alone atop of the Big Sky Conference at 5-0.
The Huskies have won six of their last seven games, but this one was special for Treve Martin.
“I think after this win against the No. 4 team in the state, I definitely think we can reach our goals,” Treve said.
“But, we are definitely going to have to work on ball movement and not being stagnant.
“We are really an unselfish group, so I am not really worried about ball movement,” he added.
“It will come obviously. Like I said, we just have to move the ball, play hard defense like we have been and I think we will be just fine.”
Sherman is in Arlington at 7:30 p.m. Friday, and then they host Condon-Wheeler at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
SWC played against Horizon Christian tonight in a league matchup. After that, the Redsides host Ione at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
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