Warden boys, girls hoops fall in season openers

CASHMERE – On a snowy night at the Cashmere High School gym, the Warden Cougar boys and girls basketball teams took to the court against the Bulldogs.

Both teams fell in their season openers, with the girl's team losing 53-47 and the boy's team losing 56-48 in their matchups against 1A Cashmere.

Girls match

“We were excited to play, and we’ve got a tough schedule,” Warden girls basketball head coach Josh Madsen said. “We start out with a really tough opponent, and that’s what we talked about in the locker room. It’ll make us better, we could have scheduled easy and had a cupcake to start with and blown them out, but we don’t need that.”

The Cougars left the court at halftime with a 28-21 lead in the girl’s game but came out flat in the third quarter. Warden’s only points of the third quarter came on two converted free throws by junior Lauryn Madsen.

“We came out with dead legs, everything was a little short, and they sort of punched us in the mouth,” Madsen said. “They played with a lot more energy than we did, and we didn’t respond.”

Later in the fourth quarter, Warden found itself down 46-31 to the Bulldogs but fought back on a 16-3 run to cut the deficit to two. Cashmere scored on a fast break to increase the lead to four and added two more free throws to take a 53-47 win.

“We’ve got some fighters,” Madsen said. “We’re not going to roll over and die, we don’t like to lose and we certainly don’t want to go out like that. If we’re going to lose, it’s because they earned it.”

Even with a season-opening loss, Madsen said there are positives to take from the game.

“We’re going to focus on the positives and focus on what we can do to get better,” Madsen said. “We’ll move on.”

Boys match

After a 15-minute intermission, the Warden boys team faced off against Cashmere. First-year head coach Brent Erdmann said that through his years of coaching experience, Cashmere is “second to none” in terms of playing environment.

“Cashmere’s a great place to play,” Erdmann said. “They’ve got a lot of history here, and they play tough. They’re a tough, physical team – always have been. All the years I’ve watched and coached basketball, you know you’re going to battle.”

The Cougars jumped out to a 12-6 lead courtesy of three-point shots by junior Bubba Oronia, sophomore Anthony Gutierrez and junior Owen Cox. Warden controlled the lead for nearly the entire first quarter until a Cashmere three right before the buzzer put them down 19-17 at the break.

“We were amped up,” Erdmann said. “We’ve been battling each other for over two weeks at practice, so getting to come here and all the hype – there’s been a lot of hype around town with these young men because they’ve worked hard.”

Down by five at the half, the Cougars found themselves down by 11 points before another three-point barrage ensued to cut into the Cashmere lead, making the score 39-38. Cashmere was able to pull away in the fourth thanks to back-to-back threes to make it 48-40, eventually winning 56-48.

“They’re shooting with confidence,” Erdmann said. “Those extra passes that they’re throwing to make sure a guy was open, that was a big deal because they were playing together to get those shots.”

Warden boys converted eight threes on Tuesday night, though Erdmann said he believes this may not be a common occurrence for the Cougars this season.

“I’m going to allow them a lot of freedom right now,” Erdmann said. “We’re learning each other, too. Shooting that many threes probably isn’t what we’re going to be doing every night, it happened to be that’s what we did tonight. We were shooting threes, but most of them were open.”

The Cougar boys and girls teams return to the court for another doubleheader on Friday, on the road against Granger. Girls tip off at 6 p.m. and the boys at 7:30 p.m.

“We didn’t know what to expect tonight, and they didn’t quit on us,” Erdmann said. “They kept playing, they kept going hard. Couple mistakes here and there that we can tweak, but it’s going to be a fun year.”

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.

Box Scores

Warden Girls

Warden - 15-13-2-17 47

Cashmere - 11-9-18-14 57

Warden Boys

Warden - 17-7-14-10 48

Cashmere - 19-10-13-14 56