Div. II teams play leapfrog

by Mark Butcher

Sports Writer

In an unusual twist of basketball fate, Thursday’s (Nov. 1) Bremerton Park & Rec Men’s Fall League (Div. II) games were a possible prelude to the league championship games in two weeks. No. 1 Boat Shed (3-0) played #2 All-State (2-1) in the early game, #3 McClouds (2-1) took on #4 Casey’s Bail Bonds (1-2) in the middle game, and #5 Sound Life Church (1-2) laced them up against #6 Honey Badgers (0-3). In all three contests, the underdog won.

The most exciting of the three games was the opener. With the clock cascading to zero, Bremerton alumnus Ulysses Williams IV broke the 63-all tie with his tenth field goal of the game, to put his team, All-State, ahead 65-to-63. Boat Shed’s Atyus Smith had time to answer with a game winning shot but his seventh three-point basket did not fall through the net and Boat Shed lost for the first time this season.

A glimpse at the scoresheet shows that it wasn’t Smith’s final three-point shot that prevented Boat Shed from winning. Smith accounted for 22 of the team's 63 points, his second twenty-point game of the season. What cost Boat Shed the game was the absence of a strong supporting cast. Jake Reynolds was the only other member of Boat Shed’s eight players to score in double figures, with 10 points.

On the other end of the floor, Williams scored a game-high 26 points, with strong double-digit scoring help coming from Ken Riley (11 points) and Nathan Perry (10). It was Williams' fourth twenty-plus game this Fall. He leads the league in scoring, averaging 25.5 points per game. Thursday's performance follows on the heels of a league-high 34-points last week against Casey’s Bail Co.

With the win, All-State (3-1) moved to the top of the Men’s Div. II Standing and into a first-place tie with Boat Shed (3-1). If both teams win next week, All-State will get the #1 spot and Boat Shed will slide in as #2 for the championship game on Wednesday (Nov 14) at 7:05 p.m. in the Bremerton Brick Palace. All-State is scheduled to play Honey Badgers (1-3) this coming Wednesday (Nov. 7) at 6 p.m. and Boat Shed will tip-off against McClouds (2-2) on Thursday (Nov. 8) at 7:05 p.m.

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If you are an avid league follower, you will recall that I indicated last week that Casey’s Bail Co. was making key additions to its roster and could be a dangerous team leading into the league championship. In the second contest Thursday, Casey’s (1-2) demonstrated what it is capable of by displacing McClouds (2-1) 78-to-53.

For the first twenty minutes the game was an even affair, with Casey’s emerging with a 34-to-27 halftime lead.

In the second half, Maurice Modestin got hot and canned six three-point baskets on the way to a season-high 30 points. But it wasn’t Modestin’s long-range assault that allowed Casey’s Bail Co. to rack-up a dominate 44 points in the second half. Becaue McClouds father and son team, Jerry and Drew Vettleson, answered Modestin’s barrage with their own salvo of seven trifectas. Father Jerry put four second half threes in the book, on the way to a team-high 22 points, and son Drew added two additional baskets from behind the arc to run his game total up to 13.

What McClouds didn’t have was any resemblance of an inside game. Casey’s twins, Dontiel and Antrel Madison, controlled the paint, scoring five field goals each on the way to 15 and 10 points respectively. Whereas, McClouds, as a team, just barely got five field goals in the entire forty minutes of action.

With the win, Casey’s Bail Co. (2-2) moves up into the third-place spot in the standings and McClouds (2-2) drops to fourth. A victory against Sound Life Church (1-3), Casey’s Thursday (11/8) opponent, will keep them in the running for the league championship, if, McClouds (2-2) can upset Boat Shed (3-1) the same evening. Casey’s players will obviously be cheering for McClouds.

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Sound Life Church showed their newness and inexperience in the Bremerton Park & Rec Men’s League with a 13 point first-half performance in the final game Thursday night. Although they outscored Honey Badgers 34-to-25 in the second half, it was not enough to crawl out of the 24-point (13-to-37) first-half hole they dug for themselves.

Following a one-game absence, leading scorer Danny Broussard returned to record a team-high 17 points, 13 of those points in the second half. But he was not one of Sound Life’s five starters, which may have contributed to the team’s poor open period performance. Tim Coots was Sound Life’s only other double-digit scorer with 10 points.

On the other side of the ball, Honey Badgers Dez Johnson and Colton Wade were putting themselves into the league records book.  Johnson tallied a game-high 24 points, his third 20-plus game of the Fall League, and Wade followed with 23, his first big-points game. What is noteworthy about Wade’s numbers is that 18 of those points came battling in the paint. Three of his remaining points came on a  long-range basket and the remaining two he garnered at the charity strip.

With identical 1 & 3 records, both teams reside at the bottom of the Men’s Fall League (Div. II) standings. Thursday’s win, though, does give Honey Badgers a slightly better view, one rung up the ladder.

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