MLCA/CCS boys basketball team takes first win in district tournament

MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Christian Academy/Covenant Christian School (MLCA/CCS) boys basketball team won its first game in the district tournament Wednesday night.

The Lions went up against Cascade Christian Academy (CCA), and took the game 72-15.

MLCA/CCS was on fire from the jump in the first quarter. As soon as it got going, the team was on a roll and nearly unstoppable. Within the first minute of the game, the Lions had a 5-0 lead over CCA. MLCA/CCS was able to gain a lead of 19 points in just the first quarter, bringing the score to 27-4 going into the second quarter.

By the second quarter, MLCA/CCS was subbing in its reserve players and lightening up on its pressing. Despite this, CCA still couldn’t keep up and the Lions brought its lead to 39-6 at the half.

In the third quarter, people saw MLCA/CCS players start to relax and focus on running the plays as they continued to sink basket after basket and create turnovers.

Going into the fourth quarter, MLCA/CCS was ahead 59-13. Despite the huge lead, MLCA/CCS wasn’t going to stop. It sank 13 more points before the final quarter was up.

The Lions took the game with a large deficit of 72-15.

MLCA/CCS senior Pierre Boorman led the game with 18 points.

“What they did was played basketball. We pulled off the press before we were even up 20, the rest was just them playing basketball,” MLCA/CCS head coach Emerson Ferguson said.

Ferguson said he focuses on preparing his players to understand the mental side of basketball because there is only so much he can do as a coach on the physical side. He said his team is prepared physically for its opponents and he hopes he has instilled enough mental toughness in his team to be prepared against the teams in the district tournament and hopefully the state tournament.

“I’ve always emphasized that I want our practice level to be the same as other people’s game level,” said Ferguson.

He also said he designed the program so players could get a jump on teams in the beginning of the game, but his team also has the will, heart and talent to come back from a deficit if need be.

Ferguson said he was really happy with how the team played and he feels like his team’s hard work is showing.

“I’m really happy they didn’t come in over-confident; I didn’t want them to be over-confident and I also didn’t want them to come in not respecting their opponent. So they went out and just played basketball and that was what I wanted from them,” said Ferguson.

The team takes on Entiat High School at home on Saturday for the second round of the district tournament.

Ferguson said he wants the community to support the MLCA/CCS teams as they play the second round of the district tournament this weekend.

The MLCA/CCS girls play on Friday against Entiat at home, as well, and Ferguson wants the gym to be packed in support. Both games begin at 7:30 p.m. at Daystar Gym.

Box score:

MLCA/CCS - 27 12 20 13 - 72

CCA - 4 2 7 2 - 15