By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.– Mountain View sought out revenge from their 71-70 overtime defeat to West Salem back on January 20 when the two squads met in Salem Thursday night at West Salem High School.  

Tane Prictor and Quincy Townsend each paced the Cougars in the road team’s 55-52 victory over the Titans.  Holding off West Salem’s late game push, looking to tie the game at the buzzer that fell just short of it’s mark after being down 48-38 about three minutes into the final quarter.

“We came into the game last time going to overtime, so we knew it was going to be tough.  I was trying to do my best job on (Prictor) and trying to keep him off the blocks and not shoot his shots,” Trenton Ferguson said.  “We got to get back to practice and adjust.  We got to forget about it and move on because we have so much left  in the season and then playoffs.”

Prictor, who finished with 20 points in the win for the Cougars, scored eleven of his points in the second quarter helped keep the Cougars ahead of Ferguson and the West Salem team going into the halftime break up 28-25.  The Titans would grab the lead early in the third quarter, 33-32, but a 9-2 to close out the quarter aided Mountain View that eventually build the Cougars lead to ten in the fourth quarter leading 48-38.

Something felt off in the is game as West Salem couldn’t piece it together until the closing minutes of the game where they picked it up as they did in the first quarter.  With two three’s from Tommy Slack and a seven-point quarter from Jon Breyman, they slowly climbed back into contention of the game.  Setting themselves up for a possible tying shot with 4.9 seconds remaining.  

Burning those their final two timeouts, getting across half-court, they sent one final shot off from the student section side of the stands.  Barely missing it’s mark at the buzzer as they fall to a two-way tie for third with Bend in the Mountain Valley Conference.  With Sprague up next, it’ll be important to refocus and get back to it going into that home game with the Olympians.

“We got to get back. Mentally adjust and back to what we do and defensively do,” Ferguson said. “We got to get back being quick.  Getting back to who we are in transition, getting steals and being scrappy.  Just having energy you know.  It’s the end of the season, we got to put it together and be focused…so we’ll be working a lot in practice on that.”

Slack scored 15 points for West Salem, Ferguson added another 14 and Conor Oertel contributed another eight.  Townsend finished with a game-high 22 points for Mountain View.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald