SULTAN
King’s boys basketball coach Marv Morris believes he’s got a team with potential this year, though he admits sometimes the Knights drive him nuts.
“Sometimes we’re pretty good,” said Morris, whose team improved to 6-0 in the Cascade Conference with a 68-62 victory over Sultan Jan. 12.
“And, sometimes, we’re pretty cruddy.”
Morris saw a bit of each in the Sultan High School gym, but the good-to-cruddy ratio improved for the Knights in the second half. King’s overcame a 38-30 halftime deficit to bring down the undersized but feisty Class 2A Turks, who dropped to 3-2 in conference and 6-5 overall.
Morris, whose team was ranked first in the WashingtonPreps.com Class 1A preseason poll, believes his team has potential but needs to continue to improve before the postseason begins next month.
“We’re not there yet,” said Morris, whose teams have placed at state in five of the last six seasons, including Class 1A state titles in 2001 and 2002. “We’re not even close to our vision of ourselves. We are working toward getting there.”
Morris’ vision includes utilizing his big men.
King’s, which starts four players taller than 6 feet, 4 inches — including 6-foot-10 post Charlie Enquist — used it size advantage in the second half. The Knights opened the second half with a 10-2 run against the Turks, whose tallest player is 6 feet, 4 inches.
Bryan Ayers held off Sultan late by sinking six straight free throws in the final 45 seconds.
“They got the ball down low in the second half,” said 5-foot-9 guard RJ Perkins, who scored 16 points. “We did a good job of keeping it out of there in the first half.”
Enquist sat the remainder of the first half after picking up his second foul just 31/2 minutes into the game.
In Morris’ mind, the cruddy stuff usually comes when the Knights shoot from the outside and forget about the post players.
“We went to more of a restricted pattern in the second half where we were definitely going to get the ball down low,” Morris said. “It really paid off. We had a huge size advantage.”
Sultan, ranked No. 9 in the preseason Class 2A poll, took advantage of Enquist’s extended absence. Trailing 10-8 shortly after Enquist took a seat, Perkins, who entered the game averaging 23.5 points, scored seven points in a Sultan 13-0 run that gave the Turks a 21-10 lead.
Trey Wright’s 3 at the end of the first quarter cut King’s deficit to eight.
The Turks, who got double-figures scoring from three players (Jesse Nicholes, Jordan Nicholes and Perkins) in the first half, led 38-30 at the half.
Sultan led 48-45 with a minute to go in the third, but Enquist began a 7-0 Knights’ run by putting back his own miss.
Each of the Nicholes brothers picked up a fourth of five allotted fouls in the fourth quarter, further hindering the Turks’ interior defense.
Sultan grabbed four straight offensive rebounds to set up Perkins’ 3-pointer that tied the score at 53 with 3:45 remaining. The Turks, however, misfired their next three times down the floor. Enquist further pointed out the Knights’ size advantage with a dunk for a 60-55 advantage with 1:22 to go, just before Ayers began his free throw clinic.
“It was a close game,” said Jesse Nicholes, who scored 10 points to give the Nicholes brothers 28 for the game. “We played hard, but King’s is real tall and real good.”
Ayers led King’s with 13 points. Forward Biniam Tadele added 12 points and six rebounds.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
