King’s stifles A. Murphy with defense

SHORELINE

The King’s boys basketball team’s defensive scheme is one of the reasons it has owned the Cascade Conference since its inception.

That defensive prowess was on display as the Class 1A Knights whipped Class 2A league rival Archbishop Murphy 48-29 Dec. 19 at King’s High School.

King’s held the Wildcats to single digits in each of the four quarters and no individual scored in double figures.

“Our defense was unbelievable tonight,” King’s head coach Bill Liley said. “That was what was the most fun, watching our kids play defense.”

King’s stopped the Wildcats inside game as their top posts Ryan Bourke and Brendan Sherrer went scoreless.

“We were hoping to get the ball inside more than we did,” Archbishop Murphy coach Jerry Zander said. “They took away probably what is our strength. We’re a big strong front line. We weren’t able to get the ball down low.”

The Wildcats hung with the Knights for most of the first half until King’s ended the half on a 9-0 run to take a 26-15 lead.

In the third quarter, Archbishop Murphy’s 3-2 zone slowed down the Knights, but the Wildcats also went scoreless for nearly four minutes. The Wildcats went back to man to speed the game up, but still never got on track offensively.

King’s, meanwhile, got a game-high 21 points from senior forward Erich Fuhlendorf.

“When they were in zone we took what they gave us,” he said. “This was a big one. Archbishop’s the rival. We wanted this one, it’s our homecoming. It’s a good win for us.”

King’s improved to 2-0 in the conference and 3-2 overall. The Knights have won three straight after losing non-conference games to Newport and Bothell.

The Wildcats, who are expected to be much improved with their four top scorers back, started out with quality wins over Cedarcrest and Class 4A Cascade. The loss to King’s drops them to 1-1 in the conference and 2-1 overall.

“We’re not going to dwell too much on one loss,” Zander said. “We’re going to learn from it. I don’t think it was our best night. We had a lot of breakdowns defensively.”

Still, improving the defense has been a priority for the Wildcats, who brought in assistant Chris Weakley to address that concern.

“He’s trying to get our defensive intensity up,” Zander said.

Despite the 19-point win, Liley acknowledged the Wildcats effort to get better. Facing an improved league is important to making King’s, the three-time defending conference champions, better.