Defense delivered the decision in Des Moines on Saturday, Jan. 14.
Building huge, double digit leads, the Evergreen Lutheran boys' basketball team still needed some late game stops to turn back visiting Northwest School of Seattle and escape with a 64-54 non league verdict.
"Defensive pressure got us the ball and we went and pushed the ball up the court," said Eagle assistant coach David Lindner. "When our defense gets static, we can't run."
After overcoming a 7-1 first quarter deficit, the Eagles showed glimpses of future action by taking a brief 12-10 lead before trailing 15-12 after one quarter.
Evergreen Lutheran's ball hawking defense nearly collapsed the roof of the team known as "the House" in a second quarter hammer job.
Trailing 19-16 in the second quarter, the high flying Eagles commanded lightning-like scoring flashes of 7-2 and 9-0 under the leadership of Andrew Goyins and Jayson Kjenstad to gain clear ownership of the game with a 35-21 halftime clearance.
Evergreen Lutheran's awesome defense forced wild Northwest School shooting and set up the onslaught of an up tempo transition game.
Following a Goyins three-point missile and his two free throws to open the second half the Eagles held a dominating 38-21 margin.
Then, foul trouble and bad decisions intervened to aid a Northwest School comeback.
With several Eagle "ministers of defense" forced to serve bench time due to foul trouble plus a few ill-advised passes as the building blocks, "the House" rebuilt its roof to score nine consecutive points and draw within 42-36 with just more than two minutes remaining in the second quarter. Woody Parks assisted Goyins for a goal before Jack Buckner's basket capped a 7-0 NWS scoring surge that brought Northwest within 44-43.
As the previous 17-point lead nearly evaporated due to the drop in defensive intensity, Sam Shannon converted a free throw to send the Eagles into the fourth quarter with a 45-43 edge.
Midway through the fourth quarter, EL was clinging to a 50-48 lead.
Following some key defensive stops, Shannon's baseline drive basket ended a 4-0 Eagle surge to send Evergreen Lutheran into a 54-48 breathing space that proved to be sufficient for victory.
"Pushing the ball, being aggresive and not overthinking got us the big leads," Goyins said. "After it got close, we regrouped by playing good defense."
Goyins led all scorers with 27 points while also grabbing nine rebounds and three steals for Evergreen Lutheran. Jayson Kjenstad had 10 points to go along with nine rebounds and four steals. Karl Leitzke earned 10 points and nine rebounds while Shannon also scored 10 points.
Buckner paced Northwest School with 21 points and nine rebounds. Teammate Khalif El-Salaam notched 16 points.
"The fouls slowed down our tempo," said EL head coach Jeff Kurbis. "We have to play on the edge. I'm proud of how we kept fighting. Our ball handling skills have improved so much since the start of the seasson. We just have some stretches where we make mistakes and give up quick points. It will take time to get used to my system (which is continually up tempo and which produced years of league titles and state appearnces for the Evergeen Lutheran girls' varsity program). We practice on ball handling every day."
This was the case on Friday in an 80-72 SeaTac 2B loss to Chief Leschi.
The Eagles led 7-5 in the first quarter before Chief Leschi converted a long series of Eagle mistakes into a 17-7 lead first quarter lead. The Eagles trailed 40-21 at one point and 65-51 at 5:36 remaining in the fourth quarter before surging within 70-65.
Leitzke led four players in double figure scoring for EL with 19 points plus corraling 16 rebounds. Kjenstad notched 13 ponts with nine rebounds. Also in double figure scoring were Shannon (14), Goyins (10) and Kim Pine (10).
Nate Bisson (25) and Joe Rideout (22) led Warrior scorers.
