Moses Lake boys drop two over weekend

MOSES LAKE - The Moses Lake boys basketball team suffered a tough non-league loss to Sunnyside on the Chiefs home court Friday night.

Despite a strong performance by Bryce Perez who drained 16 points, Kevin Bennett's 14, and 60 percent shooting from the field by Moses Lake in the first half of action, the Chiefs dropped the game 59-50 to Grizzlies.

Moses Lake fell behind 7-2 to start the contest, but Perez knocked down seven points to lead a 17-5 surge to put the Chiefs up 19-12 at the end of the first quarter of action.

Jordan Garcia hit the first bucket of the second quarter to start another run by the Chiefs to put the home team up 25-14. A 3-point basket by Bennett doubled the Grizzlies 28-14 with three minutes left in the first half.

Sunnyside determined to hang around, closed the gap to 31-20, but Moses Lake went on a 6-2 run to close out the quarter and take its biggest lead of the game 37-22 as time expired.

"I was really pleased with the way the guys played in the first half," coach John Hohman said. "I reminded the kids at halftime the game was not over. We still had 16 minutes to play and needed to clean some things up from the first half and if we did that, I thought we had a good to win the game."

Up by 15 points at the break, hitting 60 percent from the floor and 67 percent from the charity stripe, the Chiefs looked like they were in complete control of the game.

But the wheels came off the bus in the second half of play as the Chiefs offense turned stone cold, shooting 18 percent from the floor and 25 percent from the free throw line.

Moses Lake gave up ground in the third quarter as the Grizzlies went on a 12-5 run to close the gap to 42-34.

"I thought we played pretty good defense until the last few minutes of the third quarter," Hohman said. "The kids were working hard and were drained both physically and mentally, but they weren't about to give up."

Neither team scored for the first minute and a half of the fourth quarter until Sunnyside's Greg Spini sank two free throws to ignite a 9-0 spurt for the Grizzlies first lead since the opening minutes of the ball game.

A basket and a free throw by Cliff Phillips put Moses Lake back in front 45-43, but Sunnyside answered back with five points to take the lead back, 48-45 with three minutes left to play.

A basket by Perez cut the lead to 48-47, but back-to-back buckets by the Grizzlies Trey Seri put Sunnyside up by six, 53-47.

Bennett drilled a trey with two minutes left to get the Chiefs within three, 53-50, but Sunnyside out scored Moses Lake 6-0 down the stretch to put the game away, 59-50.

The non-league loss drops the Chiefs record to 2-2 overall.  The team has yet to play a league game, but will when Moses Lake hosts Chiawana Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Kamiakin 73

Moses Lake 29

KENNEWICK - Moses Lake hit the road Saturday to take on Kamiakin looking to get back in the win column. Unfortunately, the Chiefs ran into a buzz saw in the likes of the Braves as they dominated the game from start to finish.

"Kamiakin is a tough physically talented team that is probably in the top five in the state," Hohman said. "Our kids are young and inexperienced, but did everything we asked them to do. My starters got tired and that's my fault. I need to find ways to get them some rest in games like this so they'll be more fresh and ready to go."

The Braves Cooper Clyde and Justin Pedley jump started the Kamiakin offense, hitting 3-pointers 30 seconds into the game to propel the home team to a 17-2 lead.

Moses Lake never recovered as the team trailed 25-6 at the end of the quarter and 39-12 at the half.

The Chiefs offense woes carried over from the second half of Friday's game as the team was 12-of-56 (21.4 percent) from the floor, turned the ball over 11 times and were outrebounded 40-25.

Bryce Perez led the scoring for Moses Lake with eight points. Ulyanchuk had eight rebounds.

Moses Lake is back in action when the Chiefs host Chiawana in a league game Friday at 7:30 p.m., then travel to Walla Walla Saturday to take on the Blue Devils.

"We really need to come prepared," Hohman said. "We need to be focused this weekend because this is the start of league play."