By BEN MCCARTY
News staff writer
January 2, 2008

As they head toward league play next week, the Hood River Valley boys basketball team is showing that it has the ability to finish games strong. Now it needs to figure out how to start them the same way.

Trailing by nine at the half against Stevenson on Saturday, the Eagles rallied back, but could never find a way to stay in front in a 60-56 loss.

After Andy Kennedy tied the game at 49-49 with 4:05 to go in the game, the Eagles took the lead 51-50 on a long jumper by Shay Huskey a few minutes later, but could not hold it.

“We had plenty of opportunities; we just missed the shots,” Eagles coach Zach Pauls said.

With the Eagles rallying in the fourth quarter, Casey West elevated his game for the Bulldogs to keep the Eagles from taking the lead. West led all scorers in the game with 32 points, including several key free throws in the final minute to ice the game.

“Every team we play it seems they have one player is just a better basketball player,” Pauls said of West.

With the Eagles down by two with 20 seconds to play, Huskey was fouled by Stevenson’s Kyle Dudley, setting up a one-and-one for Huskey. He missed the first and Stevenson rebounded. West was quickly fouled and hit both free throws to give the Bulldogs a four-point advantage with 10 seconds left.

That should have won the game for Stevenson, but the Eagles’ Adam Williams was fouled at the other end despite Stevenson coach Glenn Stump yelling across the court for his team to be sure not to foul on defense. Williams hit the first to get within three, and then missed the second intentionally to try and set up a last second three-point try. However, he was whistled for a lane violation for stepping across the free-throw line before the ball hit the rim.

“We were going to try and miss it and tip it out to the three-point line,” Pauls said. “But that was the kind of night we had.”

On the ensuing inbounds pass, Williams had a hard collision with West at mid-court trying to break up the inbounds pass, sending Williams to the sidelines with a back injury and West to the line to hit a free throw to put the game away.

Pauls knew the Eagles had plenty of chances to take the lead and win the game; now he wants to see it result in a win.

“We had things set up and things we wanted to do but we just didn’t execute,” he said.

The Eagles were led by 15 points from Tyler Williams, 12 points from Kennedy and 11 points from Adam Williams.

As they head into their league opener next Friday at Sandy, the Eagles will look for ways to turn their effort into execution against the Pioneers.

“We’re just going to work on our execution in practice,” Pauls said. “If we play like we did tonight, we’ll be fine.”

The Eagles play at Sandy on Friday and at Reynolds the following Tuesday before facing Centennial in their conference home opener that Friday.