By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

STAYTON, Ore.–  It took until the second quarter but the Regis Boys Basketball team finally found their groove against Blanchet Catholic in the opening round of Tri-River Conference League Playoffs Saturday afternoon at Regis High School.

The Rams went on to win 68-39 to advance to play Western Christian Tuesday in the league playoff quarterfinals, but at one point late in the first quarter they were down 14-8 to the Cavaliers before slowly building some momentum going into the second quarter with four-straight points.  Thanks to those four points, they loosened up just a bit as they found their confidence in the second quarter where they took over the lead and led 30-17 by the halftime break.

Swinging momentum into their favor for the second half as Regis continued to build upon their lead going into the next round of the league playoffs with the competition just getting tougher from here before the start of the 2A State Playoffs in a few days.

“We knew we could’ve done better than that.  We planned on coming on out with better intensity than we did at the beginning.  We realized that we needed to do it now, we didn’t execute in the first quarter, so we needed to do it now and that’s what we did,” Isaiah Koehnke said.  “Come out with a better mindset and play smart the entire game.  Play as one as a team, all four quarters and we’ll get it done.”

Koehnke finished the game with 26 points and Diego Aguilar contributed another 20 points in the win.  Daniel Maza finished with 11 points in his final game in a Blanchet uniform, closing out a great year for him and the Cavs who went 10-15 on the year.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald