Joe Williamson and the coaching staff of the Corvallis High girls basketball team knew how big of a win their team had just achieved when they smothered South Medford 51-40 back on Thursday at the Nike Laker Interstate Shootout.
The players may not have.
The Spartans overcame a slow start, in part possibly due to playing twice the day before and hanging out staying up later than they probably should have that night, to outscore the 6A panthers by 16 after the first quarter.
The defense was smothering, holding the Panthers 33 points under their season average.
If the Spartans can play like that when they return from the break, who knows how much success they can achieve.
CHS backed up that win with a 45-22 win over Centennial on Friday to end the round-robin tournament 3-1. It wasn’t a stellar start as the game was tied 5-5 after the first quarter. But CHS found some offense while keeping up its defense to outscore Centennial 22-8 over the next two quarters.
The Spartans win the first-place trophy based on three big wins, despite having identical records with South and Aloha, who they lost to on Wednesday on a controversial call late.
Gabe Johnson was named to the all-tournament team, the only Spartan to be honored. There were a number of other possible candidates, such as Eva Oriakhi or Katie Schrock or … Problem is the Spartans were so balanced that you hade a number of players step up at different times, making it hard to single anyone out.
So now it’s time for a break as the Spartans take four days off. They return to practice on Wednesday and begin preparation for the Mid-Willamette Conference season.
At 7-3, Williamson couldn’t have asked for much more from a team that won just nine games last year.
The preseason is over. Now it’s time to get to work on making a run at a state playoff berth.
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