By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  Silverton finally got back into the win column after three tough defeats leading up to their 80-45 win over Regis at the Capitol City Classic Monday afternoon.

They used their height to win the rebounding battle, matched the Rams tempo with their own high-paced tempo, and used drives to the basket to turn a 17-16 Regis lead into a 37-28 halftime lead and a 65-36 lead going to the fourth.  Keeping the pace knowing how well the Rams can play and how they can turn it on if they start hitting their shots.

“It was pretty good, we’re pretty tall and so we just put the gas down and we haven’t done that yet,” Silverton’s Brody Kuenzi said.  “Sometimes we’ve had lapses in the third quarter, but we played a good game today.  They got some good players, so it was good that we finished strong.  We haven’t played super strong all year, but we played really good today.”

Kuenzi finished with a double-double, 21 points with ten boards and two blocks, in the win.

For Regis, they hung around once again against a big school.  They had the game to within ten early in the third quarter, down 40-30, but couldn’t find that other gear as Silverton had as they are still in the hunt for their first win in the Capitol City Classic.  They’ll play the loser of Central-Sprague Tuesday morning at 10am before closing out the tournament Wednesday.

Regis’ Isaiah Koehnke mentioned that they don’t want to just hang around, they want to be out in front and this tournament has shown them how much they need to work to get that ‘Killer Instinct’ as a Silverton or West Salem that they’ve played up to this point.

“This shows us a lot of things like how hard we have to work to be as good.  We’re not going to get some of that stuff in practice…going up against that length or that speed.  We’re going to have to play harder than we ever have,” Koehnke said, who finished with 11 points.

Tyler Mansur (16), Konnor Rablin (10) and Elisha Howard (11) all scored in double-figures for Silverton.   Casey Voltin had nine points for the Rams in the defeat.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald