Columbia High’s varsity girls basketball team made its record 2-0 last Wednesday with a 40-31 non-league victory over Riverside in Boardman, Ore.
Jaleh Kermani and Mich-aela Enyart each scored nine points to pace the Bruins. Morgan Vasquez and Kirstin Hylton each had six.
Kermani also had a team-high seven rebounds. Corrie Brending collected five.
The night before the Bruins tipped of their Trico League schedule at home with a 62-25 win against King’s Way.
Hylton led the way offensively with 14 points. Vas-quez scored 10, Brending and Kermani each had nine, and Olivia Grim added eight.
Kermani, moreover, chair-ed the boards with 11 re-bounds. Kylene Olin didn’t score, but she provided four steals and three assists.
The season-opening home-and-away performances did not disappoint Bruins Coach Howard Kreps. His newest team made 37 percent of its field-goal attempts in both games, converted most of its free throws (17 of 31 combined), and gathered 86 re-bounds overall.
“I thought we did OK for the first two games out,” he said. “I think we’re going to be a more-rounded team than we were last year, but we’ll have to get into the meat of the order to find out.”
Columbia High Boys
The CHS boys got off to an 0-2 start with losses at King’s Way in Vancouver on Dec. 3 and at Riverside on Dec. 4.
In their Trico and season opener against King’s Way, the Bruins were outscored 30-9, in the second half as the Knights pulled away for the win.
Columbia trailed 16-7 after one quarter and 38-24 at halftime but couldn’t put together any runs in the second half to make a dent in its deficit. The final score was 68-33.
Junior Ryan Lockman tallied a team-high 13 points for the Bruins, and senior Jordan McClain followed in the scoring column with nine points.
“We held them everywhere but on the glass,” Bruins Coach David Garwood noted. “Their 6-7 forward, Kienan Walter, dominated [with 22 points], and double-digit turn-overs in the second half was the end for us. Twenty-four turnovers in 32 minutes is not a recipe for victory.”
The following night, CHS visited Riverside for a non-league game that favored the home team at halftime, 21-16.
Riverside pulled away in the second half, though, out-scoring Columbia, 45-23, en route to a 66-39 win.
Garwood said the Bruins got “completely out-muscled on the glass” after Jared Garwood went to the bench with a turned ankle.
Lockman again scored 13 points to lead the Bruins, and McClain had six.
Lyle/Wishram Girls
The Lyle/Wishram girls basketball team had as many turnovers as points in its non-league season opener at Tri-Cities Prep in Pasco last Saturday.
The turnovers contributed to the Cougars’ 47-37 loss to the Jaguars, who overcame a 20-18 halftime deficit by outscoring the visitors, 16-7, in the third quarter. The score after one quarter was 12-12.
“Tri-Cities wasn’t a better team than us, but they were better prepared,” Cougars Coach Joe Bales said. “At the moment I am trying to do too much, and it’s causing us to make too many mistakes. We had 37 turnovers – a figure that doesn’t lead to many wins. We need to slow things down rather than speed things up at the moment; lesson learned the hard way.”
MaeLynn Luke led the Cougars offensively with 13 points and spearheaded their defensive effort with eight steals (the team had 19). Mandy Solomon also had a strong game for the Cougars, despite the fact she wasn’t 100 percent healthy.
Bales noted that “Mandy fought with a 6-foot girl all night long and managed to gather 11 rebounds to go with nine points.”
Kiya Childers added seven points and five rebounds for Lyle/Wishram. Lacy Carse led Cougars playmakers as she passed off for three assists.
Lyle/Wishram Boys
The Cougars got outscored, 26-5, in the third quarter last Saturday en route to a 71-47 non-league loss to Tri-Cities Prep in Pasco. The score at halftime was 38-29, TCP.
Lyle/Wishram’s Jonathan Von Ahn led all scorers with 21 points. The host Jaguars countered with four players in double figures.
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