By Jeremy McDonald

Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  Everything just went right for Sprague and went against West Salem Tuesday night.The Olympians came out just clicking.  Hitting shots, limiting the turnovers offensively while rebound well and getting the stops needed in their 73-45 win against the Titans.  

It’s been since   February 19, 2019 when the Olys last defeated West Salem, doing so 75-72 on the road on that February 2019 night.  So going in to snap the four-game losing streak meant a lot for Sprague as they jumped out to a 17-7 lead after the first quarter.

 “For the last three years they’ve beaten us, I think we beat them once my sophomore year, so this game means a lot to not just me, but the whole team because we know the whole team over there.  So coming into this, we’ve practiced really, really hard and we knew what we had to do.  We knew their personnel really well and what their guys can do and it all just came together,” Sprague’s Dallon Morgan said.

West Salem found their offense a little bit in the second quarter.  Hitting their shots as their 18 point second quarter, Jon Breyman owned seven of those points, but their defense struggled to slow down Morgan. 

Morgan scored 14 of his 30 points in the second quarter to pace the 26-point second quarter Sprague put out to extend their lead from 10 to 18.  The Olympand led 43-25 at the halftime break, catching the Titans in a slow start lull to build the double-digit lead going into the second half.

“Just stay more focused pregame and just stick to our practice plan.  Yesterday we were planning on going under all the screens, sticking on Dallon and we just didn’t tonight.  We got to execute what we practice,” Breyman said.   “It’s kind of humbling to be honest.  We didn’t think that they were that good and they just came out and punched us in the mouth.  It took us by surprise and we couldn’t get back into the game.”

Breyman finished with nine points as the bulk of his damage in the game was held to the second quarter.  But as Sprague held the senior guard in check, West Salem made a slight run to start the second quarter.   The Olympians knew the comeback potential of the Titans. 

Morgan pointed towards West Salem coming back from 27-7 down against Beaverton in the Titans 65-62 victory at the Capitol City Classic in December with West Salem pulling to 45-32 in the third quarter.  

“I believe in their game against Beaverton, they were down 27-7 to come back and win, so we knew they were pretty good.  I think they were number ten before this game, we knew they weren’t going to let us have it.  We pretend that we were down ten at half to keep doing the same thing and work harder than we did in the first,” Morgan said.  “Looking back at this game and seeing how hard we can play and how good we can be.  Definitely in practice, working every day in practice to get better and better no-matter-what.  We can get better than where we’re at right now and we’ll have to if we want to be a really good playoff team.”

The Olys settled back in before it got too hectic.  They were able to put the game away thanks in part to a 26-8 run to trigger a running clock up a then 71-40 late in the game to snap the Titans eight-game winning streak and handing West Salem just their second defeat of the season.

Tommy Slack led the Titans with 14 points while Ryder Skogstad contributed 17 points for Sprague in the win.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald