By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SILVERTON, Ore.– Woodburn’s DyLon Renteria just felt on Tuesday night.
In the third quarter alone, the Woodburn senior hit four three-pointers, Renteria hit five total to finish the game with 15 points to help the Bulldogs stay afloat in a back-and-forth game with Silverton By the end of the third quarter, the Bulldogs led 49-42, Woodburn hitting on five total three’s and looked as if they swung momentum into their favor going into the fourth quarter.
“That’s part of my role on this team. If I’m hitting, I have to be hitting, I’m going to be a shooter. My teammates are able to find me. That’s just part of my role and just help the offense flow when it’s not sometimes,”Renteria said.
The top of the Mid-Willamette Conference has lived up to the hype. Woodburn, West Albany. Crescent Valley and South Albany are sitting in the Top 4 for the automatic bid. Silverton entered the night in good position for an At-Large bid sitting fifth in the conference, but was looking to solidify themselves in that role as they rallied back from 18-11 down in the first half to lead 28-27 by the halftime break.
Without Brody Kuenzi, out for the season with a calf injury a few games back, the Foxes were flying around and adjusting without their big man as they held their own and made runs that challenged Woodburn to close out the game. The new system that they were running, Silverton, looked as if they were running it all season long and not just for a small amount of time.
“We’re learning to play without Brody. He tore his calf, and he’s a big part of what we do. We run the offense typically through him. The last three or four games, we’re learning how to attack, how to do different things and learn that all five guys go to the glass and not rely on him,” said Foxes Head Coach David Morgan. “Woodburn is a good defensive team, they run in-and-out of man and zone, they’re really scrappy, they get a lot of deflections and credit to them, they got us out of our sync at times. But when the guys settled in and started running stuff, I liked their execution. I think that bode’s some confidence that when we’re locked in and when we’re executing the way that we should, we’re a dangerous team.”
The Foxes came out strong to start the fourth quarter and cut the lead to 49-47 before Woodburn made one last run. A 11-4 run from about the 5:03 mark of the fourth quarter to the 1:12 mark of the final frame had the Bulldogs ahead 60-51. From there, Woodburn was able to close out the game to force a two-way tie for first place in the Mid-Willamette Conference going into postseason play.
“Just staying with what we’re doing, just don’t fall off because they’re a good team. They’ll bounce back and give us some more trouble. But we stayed together, and we were able to control and shut them down as much as we could,” said Renteria. “Every team in our league was giving us good competition. It was great. We’re fighting against these good teams. Leading into this playoff run, it’ll help us a lot.”
Cruz Veliz led Woodburn with 19 points, and Esai Carrasquillo contributed another 17 points. Sawyer Tenney led Silverton with 15 points, and Sam Haugen contributed another nine points for the Foxes.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
