By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  It’s been two weeks since the last time the McKay suited up and played in a game due to weather or the Christmas holiday.  Though they’ve been getting some extra practice time in and got a mock 32-minute game in with all the trimmings and works, Dean Sanderson showed some antsy-ness to get back into game action.

“well I don’t like to have two weeks since we’ve played,” “That’s a lot of time off in between games, so we’re going to battle through that.  We’re going to be ready to go, so when you play a good team like North Medford, you can’t work your way into anything, I mean you got to be ready from the opening tip.

“So, that’s a challenge for our kids is can we do that?  Can we be ready to go right away?”

After starting 2-4 on the season, the Black Tornado of North won three straight games during the Lakeridge Tournament; two of the wins came against Tualatin (4-2) and host Lakeridge (4-1) to improve to 5-4 on the season.

And the last time the Tornado and the Royal Scots met, was 2014 in the same tournament in which North defeated McKay 71-42 and handed the 2013 Scots team their first loss of the season after starting 7-0.

So it’s a matter of time before McKay (4-1) breaks that streak versus North right?  The confidence is there as long as they play their game as they look to improve on their fourth-place finish from last season.

“By playing our game and pull out the win from them,”  said Josiah Castillo.   “The team’s doing good this year, I feel like we can compete at a high level up there and probably come out with first place.”

In their last game, versus West Salem, Khyler Beach dropped 30 points in the epic 99-98 victory last Tuesday, was on that team with Castillo as a sophomore and shares his excitement over heading down to play in the tournament this year as a junior.

“Oh we’re really excited, we’re playing at a higher pace than we did last year,” said Beach.  “We got a lot of rest, we did a lot more practice time…we put a lot more into it, just working hard to get ready for this tournament.”

The boys will travel to Medford for the Abby’s tournament tomorrow and will tip it off at 7:45 at North Medford High School and will play at South Medford High School Wednesday and Thursday.  If they win, they’ll play at 5:45 Wednesday, lose they play at 2 versus the result from the Oregon City-Ashland game.

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