NEAH BAY — In front of a packed and raucous home crowd, Neah Bay’s balanced scoring and aggressive man-to-man defense lifted the Red Devils to a 69-64 nonleague boys basketball win over Forks.
All five Neah Bay starters finished in double figures in scoring in Tuesday’s win, the team’s 13th consecutive victory and a game the defending Class 1B state champion Red Devils had marked since the Spartans ran all over them in a 77-50 win in mid-December.
“It means a lot,” Neah Bay senior Kenrick Doherty Jr. said of the win.
“This was the biggest game on our schedule. We played them early, the day my stepfather passed away and we got blown out by 25, so this one was circled on our schedule.”
Many of the Red Devils were still getting accustomed to each other and the basketball court after winning the 1B football crown last Dec. 3.
So Tuesday’s game, a highly charged back-and-forth affair featuring nine lead changes and five tie scores, was more reflective of the type of basketball that both teams are capable of producing.
Forks showed poise and persistence, sticking to its offensive game plan of getting the ball down low to 6-foot 9-nch senior center Marky Adams.
Adams cashed in for a game-high 30 points on the night, highlighted by a thunderous two-handed slam dunk off a sweet no-look lob pass from guard Jeffrey Schumack in the second quarter.
“We know how dangerous he is, so we wanted to front the post and help weakside defensively,” Red Devils coach Ben Maxson said.
“Marky Adams still got 30 points on us, but playing against him makes us a better team. I’m so happy that Forks and [coach] Rick [Gooding] and their team will play us because this will prepare us for what we see down the line [in the postseason.]”
Neah Bay was paced by its impressive starting five. Rweha Munyagi and Cameron Moore led the team with 14 points apiece.
Doherty and Anthony Bitegeko were right behind with 13 points.
Cole Svec added 12 points, including a game-sealing putback and foul shot with 19 seconds to play.
“I couldn’t be more proud of how our guys worked together and shared the ball,” Maxson said.
“This group absolutely loves to feed each other and get each other going. All year we’ve been getting better and better. You look at our top five and we’ve got players that are all capable of leading us on any given night.”
Neah Bay was able to grind out the win while playing more of the half-court game favored by Forks.
“Every game that we can control the tempo and play how we want is a benefit,” Spartans coach Rick Gooding said.
“If you noticed we got in trouble when we started playing at their pace. Every time we played at their pace it led to a not-so-great shot or a turnover.
“In an atmosphere like this, in a game that’s fast like this, it’s that open-gym mentality, ‘Oh, lets do it, let’s go.’
“It’s hard to put the reins on sometimes in this atmosphere in this gym, but we did a pretty good job.”
Forks led 15-14 after one quarter and Neah Bay answered by taking a 34-32 halftime lead on the strength of two big treys by Moore and Doherty.
Cort Prose opened the third quarter by reclaiming the lead for the Spartans with his own 3-point make. The lead exchanged four times in the third quarter, before Neah Bay closed the period an 11-2 run keyed by two more Doherty makes from long distance to lead 53-46 entering the fourth quarter.
Forks got within three at 54-51 on a Prose trey and a spinning layup by Cole Baysinger with 6 minutes to play, forcing a Red Devils’ timeout.
The Neah Bay faithful responded during the break with the Makah tribe’s War Song and the Red Devils pushed the lead back to 63-56 with 1:58 left.
But Forks wasn’t finished. Adams got three points back when he was fouled on a short attempt down low and hit a free throw with 1:43 to play.
Adams then cut the lead to 63-61 when he rebounded a missed free throw by Cole Baysinger and dropped in another bucket with 59 seconds to go.
A steal by the Spartans and a foul down low put Adams on the line with 36 seconds left. He hit the first, missed the second to pull within one point with 36 seconds to go.
Moore hit one of two free throws and Svec snuck through the paint to grab the rebound and went up strong for a bucket and foul.
Forks pulled back within 67-64 on a score by Parker Browning, but couldn’t get the ball back in time for a potentially game-tying shot.
Browning, the Spartans’ other star senior, had an off night, scoring just five points on 2 of 14 shooting.
He was guarded by Munyagi for much of the night which only made things more difficult.
“That’s Rweha,” Doherty said of his teammate’s defensive prowess. “He’s old-school. He will get in your head and tell you about it. He wants to see players break and he was in Parker’s head most of the game.”
After the game Gooding credited his seniors for building up the program.
“Our seniors helped create this atmosphere, the reason this game was viable,” he said.
“There’s been Neah Bay-Forks games where it wasn’t viable and nobody from Forks would come and cheer.
“The work that has been put into the program by Parker, Marky and Jeffrey have made it a viable game. People want to be here and come see a good basketball game.”
Neah Bay 69, Forks 64
Forks 15 17 14 18— 64
Neah Bay 14 20 18 17— 69
Forks (64) — Adams 30, Schumack 11, Baysinger 8, Prose 8, Browning 5, Tejano 2, Johnson, Baar, Flores.
Neah Bay (69) — Munyagi 14, Moore 14, A. Bitegeko 13, Doherty 13, Svec 12, Greene 3, S. Bitegeko.
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Sports reporter/columnist Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
