By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– North Salem just kept finding ways to stay in Tuesday’s home Central Valley Conference game against South Salem in a total 180 from the pair’s January 16 game at South Salem.
The Saxons jumped out to a 17-11 lead after the first quarter, the Vikings answered and took the lead into the halftime break up 30-29 on the Saxons. North Salem’s defense held South Salem to two first half three’s and the Saxons only connected on six of them in the whole contest.
Those four in the second half, all came in the third quarter with three of them coming from Teagan Scott and the other coming from Sam Johnson. The Saxon senior in Scott, did Teagan things as usual it seems like for South Salem, especially there in that third quarter where he scored 17 of his 28 points in the third frame. The Saxons led the Vikings 58-52 by the end of the third quarter.
And though it was a six-point lead, it felt as if South Salem had momentum fully on their side going into the fourth quarter.
That was, until North Salem opened the fourth quarter on an 8-3 run, and trailed the Saxons 61-60 with 5:37 left in the game when the Vikings called timeout. Moments earlier North Salem led 60-58 and they weren’t done yet as they managed to get back ahead out of the timeout, leading 62-61 thanks to a goaltending call against the Saxons.
There was 5:06 left in the game at this point.
“They jumped on us a little bit, they were hitting shots today. It was a good game, a really fun one,” said Scott. “We can’t take any team lightly in this league, everyone is good. But it’ll make us lock-in these next two days at practice, which will be nice.”
This game served as a good warm-up for South Salem, who will have West Salem on Friday at home. The Saxons lone Central Valley Conference defeat was to the Titans back on January 20.
But, first they had to close out the Vikings, which was no easy task.
The Saxons tied it up at 62 with a split at the line before taking the lead with 4:32 off a Tko Westbrook basket. North Salem pulled back to within one, 64-63, eight seconds later thanks to a split at the line by Antonio Alvarez. Scott pushed the Saxon lead to three on the next South Salem offensive possession at the midway point of the quarter.
“Just competing all four quarters, believing in each other, trusting each other. Trusting the game plan and being disciplined with our goals. But the kids competed, and it’s also a game of runs. We just got to learn how to stay in it no matter what and we did that. I thought we had it, but we couldn’t make a couple of buckets,” said North Salem Head Coach Hemingway Huynh.
South Salem hit some shots and played some tough defense late to extend their lead to secure the 75-66 road victory. Clutching up, and coming together, to close out the win as both teams close out the second loop through league play on Friday.
“I think it just shows how good our team chemistry is and how deep our team is. If we lose faith in each other in the system, we’ll lose that game for sure. The fact that we stayed together, stayed locked in as a team is the reason why we got the win tonight,” Scott said.
South Salem will host West Salem on Friday for a 6:30pm game. North Salem, who saw Isaiah Vargas lead the squad with 14 points and Rafael Ochoa and Benjamin Box each scoring 11 points in the defeat, will travel to play Sprague on Friday.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
