MEDICAL LAKE — The Medical Lake’s boys’ basketball team emerged from last week with a split in a pair of Northeast A League games.
The Cardinals topped Deer Park 65-56 on Jan. 9 and fell to Freeman 65-51, Jan. 12, both at home.
Medical Lake (2-3 NEA, 3-9 overall) had a big push after halftime where they led 30-26 and led by double-digits before Deer Park closed to within four. Solid free-throw shooting down the stretch delivered the final margin.
Maverick Rasmussen led the Cardinals with 16 points — four from 3-point range — with Aidan Suddeth adding 13, including three 3-pointers.
“We are definitely playing better offense,” head Coach Brett Ward wrote in an email, referencing the recent improvement in point production.
He also credited the Deer Park (1-3, 4-8) win in part to earlier disappointing losses, one to East Valley and the next in overtime to Colville.
“Close losses have been tough, but we don’t beat Deer Park without going through those tough moments earlier,” Ward said.
“We were able to preserve and hopefully that is a trend?”
Freeman (6-0, 12-2) raced to a 35-18 halftime lead and extended that to 49-27 after three quarters before finishing with a 24-16 fourth.
Rasmussen’s 24 points led ML.
Ward used the Freeman game as a barometer to gauge the slow improvement he is seeing.
“We are making progress and getting better,” he said. “When we played Freeman this summer we lost 69-9.”
The Cardinals were on the road this week, Jan. 16 at Lakeside and Jan. 20 in Newport at 6 p.m.
Reader Comments(0)