Yes, it’s only January, but the Mid-Willamette Conference hoops season already is churning out masterpieces. Silverton took down two unbeaten teams from South Albany in a doubleheader sweep on Jan. 8, and as of presstime the Foxes were in the thick of both battles for league bragging rights.
The girls are 4-0 in league and ranked No. 5. They are tied with No. 7 Corvallis for the MWC lead, with Silverton set to visit the Spartans on Monday, Jan. 15. Also in the hunt at 3-1 are No. 3 South Albany, No. 10 West Albany and No. 15 Crescent Valley.
The boys? Well, there currently is a five-way tie for the league lead among the No. 12 Foxes, No. 4 Woodburn, No. 7 West Albany, No. 10 South Albany and No. 23 Corvallis. All 5 teams are 3-1 in league.
Courtesy Portland State University
Silverton showed it belonged in both sets of standings with impressive wins vs. South Albany. Kyleigh Brown scored a school record 37 points in the Foxes’ 66-51 victory. Brown, a 5-8 senior guard who will play college ball at Portland State, broke the school record of 36 set by Elizabeth Carr in 1996-97. It also was announced Monday that Brown will be joining an Oregon team that will be playing a team from Washington in April’s Northwest Shootout.
The boys, meanwhile, rallied from a potentially crushing double overtime loss at Central to deal South Albany its first league loss by a 65-54 score. The Foxes never trailed after the 3:38 mark of the first quarter and used the inside work of Brody Kuenzi (13 points), the outside work of Tyler Pooleon and Cade Wynn (a combined five 3-pointers) and the scrappy, knees-on-the-floor hustle of Elijah Howard and Sawyer Teeney to overcome the RedHawks. In one series of fourth-quarter possessions Teeney, who quarterbacks the Foxes’ football team, stole the ball and made a layup, hit a putback shot and took a charge.
Also on the hoops front, the Oregon School Activities Association has switched the site of the Class 5A tournaments from Gill Coliseum at Oregon State University to Linfield University because of scheduling conflicts at OSU. Gill is easily the best site among the six used for all the tournaments, with end zone seating for rooting sections and bands. Also, Corvallis is so much easier to get to than McMinnville. Plus OSU/Corvallis can much more easily absorb the extra parking that the tournament requires on university instructional days.
Wrestling: The squads at Silverton and Kennedy are battling their way through January tournaments and duals and looking forward to districts and state in February.
Silverton’s Jared Wilson is in his 15th year as a head coach and his fourth with the Foxes and told Our Town “this is as fun of a year as I have had coaching a group of kids. I can’t wait to see how we continue to progress and compete as the season goes on. Turnout was good this year. We had over 60 kids register for wrestling. Our goal is always to try and get over 50. Coaches worked hard to recruit. The support of wrestling from our football program, and Coach [Dan] Lever has been a tremendous help as well.”
Three of the Foxes’ top returnees are football standouts Bo Zurcher, Brash Henderson and Dalton Richie. Henderson was second at state a year ago at 220 pounds, with Zurcher fourth at 132. Ritchie competed in the heavyweight division, while 106-pounder Kingston Meadors took third at 106 as a freshman a year ago.
The Foxes also features two solid girls wrestlers, McKayla Bonham, who placed at state a year ago and Ella Lulich, who has made strong showings in tournaments.
At Kennedy, coach Dewey Enos, who started the program from ground zero in 2017, has 19 wrestlers, 16 boys and 3 girls. Strong boys performers thus far include senior 285-pounder Evan Wyatt and freshman 175-pounder Creo Walker. Senior Kira Boitano (105/110 pounds) and freshman Briana Pierre (190-pounds ) have been competing well for the girls.
“We just take it day by day. We don’t look too far ahead.,” Enos told Our Town. “I focus on the day to day tasks, with keeping good grades, and having structural practice. Also, getting ready for competitions later down the road. We do focus on our goals towards districts and state. But we try to improve day by day to get us to those tournaments. Winning is fine and fun but as long as we are able to finish together, I think that is what’s most important right now.”
