Boys basketball team loses two games

The Outlaws suffered a 46-29 basketball loss to the Cascade Cougars at home on Tuesday, January 31.

Coach Rand Runco said, “Cascade is one of the top athletic teams in the state and when they get a lead it’s hard to catch up. The key was for us to get the lead. We needed to hits shots early in the game and unfortunately, we didn’t hit our shots at all during the game.”

The Outlaws went 12-for-49 from the field for a very low 25 percent and shot only one-for-15 from the three-point arc.

Runco was impressed with his team’s great heart and ability to keep playing defense despite the fact they weren’t scoring.

“Our goal was to keep them under 50 and we did,” said Runco. “Cascade’s an explosive team. We did a good job defensively but just couldn’t score, and when we couldn’t score we couldn’t press. It was a horrible offensive outing, but to hang in there and keep it a game at all shows the courage of our kids. We didn’t quit.”

In spite of the poor offensive showing, Runco did make note of the positive.

“We beat them on the boards and didn’t turn the ball over,” he said.

Brian Knotts led the Outlaws with seven rebounds and Nate Jackson scored 11 points.

Three days later Sisters lost 75-54 at North Marion.

Coach Rand Runco told The Nugget he felt like his team hadn’t been forcing their opponents into enough turnovers so they decided to play a very fast paced game.

The strategy didn’t work as well as expected and the Outlaws missed a lot of shots and gave up too many lay-ins.

Sisters shot well at the start of the game but the Huskies caught them and took a 35-30 lead at the half.

The third quarter was disastrous for Sisters. The Outlaws missed their first nine shots of the third quarter, fell behind by 14 points and never recovered.

“It was a tough loss,” said Runco. “The kids have been working hard in practice but we’ve been in a shooting slump for a week and a half. We need to regroup and get it done now.”

Guy Mount scored 14 of his 17 points in the first half. Brian Knotts scored eight points in the game.

Sisters is 3-3 in league and one game out of second place. The Outlaws play at home on Friday, February 10, against the Sweet Home Huskies.