Second week not good for Wahluke boys

ROYAL CITY - It was a tough week for Wahluke High School boys basketball last week. Only an overtime contest with Quincy lessened the blow.

In order, the Warriors fell to Quincy, 56-55, LaSalle, 78-25, and Highland, 53-28. The Quincy loss was especially disheartening because the Jacks were down 10 points in the third period.

The Quincy game ended with Wahluke getting a good shot at the basket for the win, but it was missed as time expired.

Wahluke led, 28-23, at the half and was up by 10 points in the third quarter. Then a Quincy run changed everything. The score was 40-40 at the start of the fourth period, and it remained tight through overtime.

Both teams scored 10 points in the fourth quarter to send the game it into overtime. Then Wahluke took charge again, controlling the tip and scoring the first five points in overtime. But Quincy scored the next six to take the lead at 56-55.

Wahluke had the ball out of bounds with 2.8 seconds left. A well-executed sideline play got Wahluke a the good shot that was missed.

The Warriors were led by the 13 points of Jose Espindola, 11 points of Oscar Onofre and 10 of Tyus Squeochs. Alan Caro scored nine, and Collin Ahmann added eight.

The rest of the week was simply tough for the Warriors. They could not find the basket, and the defense was suspect at times.

LaSalle started Wahluke's second game with a 20-0 run, hitting on almost every shot it took before the Warriors finally hit a bucket. The half-time score was 51-12, and the second half didn't get much better.

Caro was the leading scorer with nine points. Ahmann was next with five, and Squeochs had four.

Against Highland, Wahluke was hoping that the shooting woes from the night before were gone. But that wasn't the case. Try as they might, the Warriors just couldn't find the basket.

The half-time score was 26-10. The Warriors knew they could come back, but the shots just wouldn't fall. For the night, they made only 11 of 63.

High scorer for the Warriors was Caro with six points. Alex Chiprez, Onofre and Espindola added four each.

Wahluke will conclude the first half of the regular season with three games this week. The Warriors will host Tri-City Prep tonight, host Burbank Friday night and travel to Royal on Saturday.