Thursday, February 26, 2009


Sugar-Salem tops Shelley to force second 3A title game
The teams will meet tonight to settle the score.
By Michael Lycklama mlycklama@postregister.com

Sugar-Salem’s Kyle Andrews (4) and Kevin Walker (22) double team Shelley’s Tanner Higham during Wednesday’s 57-42 win for Sugar-Salem.
I
n its fourth matchup against Shelley, Sugar-Salem employed its fourth defense to slow Russets point guard Tanner Higham. Sugar-Salem doubled Higham whenever he got the ball, no matter where he was on the court, and held him to 12 points in a 57-42 3A District 6 win Wednesday at Skyline. "When you stop Tanner, you stop their team," Sugar-Salem's Cameron Hastings said. "He's a great player. We just had to double him to get the ball out of his hands as much as we can."
The win creates a do-or-die conference title game at 7 tonight at Skyline. The loser will play the second-place team from District 5 in a state play-in game Saturday.
The two teams traded five leads in the first quarter before Sugar-Salem (21-3) broke off a 13-0 run between the end of the first quarter and the start of the second. Meanwhile, Sugar-Salem's defense held Higham without a shot in the first quarter. Higham still finished the first half with seven points and his 12 led the team, but that was off his season average of 19.9 points, which leads the area.
Despite committing two defenders to Higham in the backcourt, Shelley couldn't take advantage of numbers and run a four-on-three break. Shelley coach Dave Hadley spoke to his team about attacking the outmanned defense at halftime but it didn't translate to the floor. "I think the biggest thing is our guards have to play with more confidence once they get (the ball)," Hadley said. "If they are going to put two guys on one (guy) full court, we've got to make it a four-on-three game."
While Shelley (13-10) struggled on offense -- it shot 37.5 percent from the field -- Sugar-Salem shot 53.8 percent from the floor. "Offensively we had the looks that we wanted -- inside and outside," Sugar-Salem coach Jay Miller said. "If they tried to shut us off inside, we had some outside stuff going on and vice versa."
Kevin Walker, who switched off with Tyler Rhoten face guarding Higham, scored 10 points for Sugar-Salem.