Lion boys, girls dominate in wins

MOSES LAKE – The Lion boys and girls basketball teams lead from wire to wire in their dominant wins over Cascade Christian Academy on Thursday night, with the boys winning 57-19 and the girls winning 50-19.

Both teams rode commanding leads into the halftime locker room, with the boys up by 36 points and the girls pitching a shutout, up 32-0. The Lady Lions forced numerous turnovers in the first quarter, leading to transition points. Senior Kali Kast scored seven of her 14 points in the first quarter.

“The girls have worked really hard to rebound from the loss at the tournament, and we’re getting into the swing of things for league,” MLCA/CCS girls basketball Head Coach Josh Kast said.

It was a similar result for the boys, who quickly found themselves up 15-3 under six minutes into the first quarter.

“We were patient and just ran our plays,” Ferguson said. “It wasn’t freelancing or anything, we ran our plays and got open shots. Definitely what we wanted to focus on tonight.”

MLCA/CCS junior Jonah Robertson had a big night on the boys team, finishing with 22 points and hitting four three-pointers in the win.

“When I started scoring and everyone gets hyped, the other guys get their confidence from seeing me scoring,” Robertson said. “Then I pass them the ball and they score. That’s the biggest factor for us winning tonight.”

With commanding leads at the half, both of the Lion squads were able to empty the bench and get younger players valuable in-game experience.

“It helps get them ready for the atmosphere at the 1B level when they get their chance in the future,” Kast said. “It helps build their confidence, rewards them a little bit for going through the whole season. It’s fun to see them have some success out there, and it’s cool to see the team on the bench get excited for them.”

Twelve of the 13 players on the girls roster got game action while all 11 players on the boys team saw game action.

“Those guys that don’t get the minutes in close games, or don’t get a lot of minutes, I love getting them the ball and the opportunity to get out here on the varsity court,” Ferguson said. “The main reason why is it’s a whole other ball game – you have a crowd, it’s not the same as JV, or eighth grade or middle school.”

As both teams enter the full swing of league play, Kast said the lions are focusing on cleaning up the details in practices.

“(We focus on) a lot of details,” Kast said. “Details that we need to work on defensively, things that we’ve noticed in the first half of the year that we need to clean up – especially against those better teams that we faced in the first half of the year.”

For the boys, Ferguson said that reaching the 10-win mark is the first of the goals for the Lions this season.

“Our first goal was to get 10 wins, and we had nine coming into tonight,” Ferguson said. “The guys were excited to try and reach that first milestone of the season, so they were ready to go and excited.”

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

Box Scores

Girls

MLCA/CCS 20-12-12-8 50 50

Cascade Christian 0-0-4-9 13

Boys

MLCA/CCS 20-19-9-9 57

Cascade Christian 3-0-3-13 19