How many high school basketball players get to play in two games in one night? Cedarcrest’s Tanner Marty did Tuesday, and his teammates are no doubt glad he did.

Marty, a 6-foot sophomore, is what Cedarcrest head coach Micah Rieke refers to as a “swinger” — someone that moves between the junior varsity and varsity roster. On Jan. 19, Marty played two quarters in the junior varsity game early in the evening, then parts of the second and fourth quarters for the varsity team.

In the seven or so minutes that Marty played, he grabbed six rebounds — enough to lead the team — and scored all three of his points in the closing moments to help his team rally to defeat Archbishop Murphy 53-50 in a Cascade Conference boys basketball game at Cedarcrest High School.

“If he’s going to step up like that as a sophomore, he’s (going to get more opportunities),” Rieke said of Marty. “He’s a strong kid … He didn’t play intimidated.”

Marty teamed with senior Clay Hammontree (three assists) to grab key offensive rebounds in the closing minutes and the Red Wolves capitalized on a sensational shooting performance from freshman point guard Zach Taylor, who connected on three consecutive 3-pointers in the fourth quarter on his way to a game-high 20 points.

Taylor finished five of seven from behind the 3-point line. All three of his fourth quarter 3-pointers came off assists from Hammontree, the last of which gave Cedarcrest its first lead of the second half at 48-45 with 2:01 remaining in the game.

For the game, the Red Wolves out rebounded Archbishop Murphy 14-3 on the offensive glass.

Cedarcrest senior guard Daniel Campbell knows his team wouldn’t have squeaked out a victory without that advantage.

“It’s something we practice all the time in practice,” said Campbell, who finished with 11 points. “We really improved today. (Marty) helped out a lot.”

Marty gave Cedarcrest the lead for good with 1:13 remaining in the game, when he grabbed two offensive rebounds and put back his own miss to break a 48-48 tie.

Marty and Taylor combined to go 3-for-4 from the foul line to preserve the slim advantage in the final minute.

The end result? Cedarcrest, a team which went 3-17 last year, has defeated Archbishop Murphy for the first time in two years.

“We just couldn’t let (a loss to Murphy) happen,” Taylor said after the game of the fact his team trailed by eight points at the break. “They’re pretty good rivals, and (they’re) good.”

Paris Felder led Archbishop Murphy with 15 points and Casey Wagner and Jerad McCann each chipped in 10 points.

Archbishop Murphy controlled the rebounds early — but couldn’t come up with key ones in the closing minutes. All told, Marty had four rebounds in the final 1:13 of the game.

It snapped a five-game winning streak for the Wildcats (3-2 in conference), who appear to have gotten on track after playing a tough non-conference schedule to start the year.

Cedarcrest improved to 5-1 in league. The scary part for the rest of the Cascade Conference? Cedarcrest won despite relatively quiet nights from Campbell, who set school records with 41 points and 10 3-pointers last Friday, and Colton Rekers, who entered Tuesday’s game averaging 16.9 points per game.

Cedarcrest was playing without its top post threat, Tyler McKinney, who aggravated his knee a week and a half ago and missed the last three games. Rieke said he was close to returning.

“It feels great,” Rieke said of defeating rival Murphy. “We kinda needed to get the monkey off our back.”

Alex Bosworth writes for The Herald.