By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.– The Central Boys Basketball team continues their trek down the right path as they picked up yet another win.  This time against Mid-Wilamatte Conference foe Silverton with the winner heading to the Consolation Finals Wednesday against Gresham.

And going into the second half of the Panthers 70-50 victory, it looked as if we were going down the road of another possible nailbiter with Central holding onto a 31-24 lead over the Foxes at Corban University.

But thanks to strong play in the rebounding game, pushing tempo that saw Michael Young and Kai Bennett take over in leading the Panthers in scoring, the Panthers began to expand their lead.  Holding a ten point lead with 5:30 left in the game before really pulling away for good in the Capitol City Classic Consolation Semi-Final Round Tuesday afternoon.

“We just wanted to come out and close out the game.  The first half we weren’t securing the ball, so we came out strong .  We were a little bit slow in our rebounding and getting down in fastbreaks…we got a tough game tomorrow, we’re going to have a game plan and prepare .  It should be a tough one, but I feel like we’re strong enough and are ready to play,” Young said.

Young finished with 14 points in the win as the squad returns to Willamette for their 4pm game with the Gophers. Evan Good led the Silverton Foxes with 11 points.

For Silverotn, it was one of those games that they wished would’ve played out differently than it did.  Central caught them in a jam and Silverton struggled to respond across the board with rebounds, effort and not capitalizing when they could at the free throw line and the few open shots they had.  But the Foxes hope Wednesday brings the promise of a strong finish to a rather productive tournament for Silverton when they play a tough Sherwood team at 1pm at Willamette University.

“Everything’s correctable, it’s the third game in four games.  Everybody’s tired  and beat up, but at the same time some of those things are inexcusable,” starts Silverton Head Coach Tyler Allen.  “Win-or-lose (Wednesday), it’ll be a good indicator on where we’re moving as a team and finding an identity.  We rebounded very well against Regis, with a tough loss with Wilsonville.  We followed the game plan and we’ll like to see us stick to the game plan tomorrow , show up and lay it all out there.  We got some time off for Christmas, so leave it all out there in the court.  We got one more chance at it and Sherwood is very physical, like Central was and it’s our test if we can hang with these tough teams.”

Photos By Jeremy McDonald