King’s falters in second half against Bothell

BELLEVUE

Class 4A Bothell crashed the glass and senior guard Neddy Dirini scored 21 points as the Cougers rallied for a win over Class 1A King’s Dec. 8.

The Cougars outscored King’s by 11 points in the second half to snag a 48-42 win in the nightcap of the Les Schwab Hoop Challenge at Bellevue Community College.

King’s (0-2) led 22-17 at the half behind the play of center Dylan ONeil and Erich Fuhlendorf.

But Bothell took the lead for good with three seconds left in the third quarter on a shot in the lane by Dirini. The points came after the Cougars snagged a rebound off a missed free throw by Johnny Hekker.

“Tonight, I think Bothell…beat us on the boards in the second half,”King’s coach Bill Liley said.

King’s fell behind five on a pair of free throws by Dirini with under four minutes to play, but a free throw and 3-pointer by Fuhlendorf cut it to 41-40.

Back-to-back baskets by Joey Fann and Albert Horswill gave the momentum back to the Cougars with 1:42 to go and King’s couldn’t catch up.

King’s opened with the season with a 67-61 loss to Class 3A Newport, part of a nonleague schedule that features three higher classification schools from the Puget Sound area.

“Those wins are coming,” Liley said. “These games will pay off for us. Our deal is to play as tough a nonleague schedule as possible.”

Bothell, a school that has been the state runner-up in 4A football the last two years, finished second in the KingCo Mountain Division last year and was 7-15 overall.

The Cougars gave the Knights some open looks from the 3-point arc but the Knights’ focus was to drive or pound the ball inside. Fuhlendorf, who scored a team-high 19 points, had two 3-pointers.

We were really tryingto play the ball inside, Liley said. “We feel our strength is getting the ball inside to our talented kids.” Fuhlendorf, expected to be one of the top players in the Cascade Conference this year, played for Woodinville of the KingCo his sophomore year, so the opponent was familiar.

“I knew a lot of guys out there, grew up with a couple of them, so I guess you could say there was a little extra motivation,” he said.

Fuhlendorf was the only King’s player to finish in double figures. ONeil finished with eight points, six in the first half. Hekker scored seven of his nine points in the second half and Fann scored all eight of his points after the break.

Despite the loss, the Knights played a strong first half, and played Bothell’s big men tough.

“We’re a young team and it’s going to take a little time to get some of these other guys used to it,” Fuhlendorf said. “I like where we’re headed. These guys were physical; they’re a football team. I think we’re coming along fine, in the end we’ll be there.”