LSI Friday Evening Recaps

Lake Oswego 55, Redmond 35

For Oregonians, this game was the game featuring the now, Maarty Leunen, and the next, Kevin Love. Leunen was named as Mr. Oregon Basketball last season after Redmond took home their first ever state championship. Love is being touted as the best high school player to ever come out of the state of Oregon. And he’s only four games into his high school career.

But after getting two fouls in the first quarter, Love quickly went to the bench and played limited minutes in the first half. Lake Oswego battled through with perimeter scoring and good team basketball.

At the start of the second half, it was the same ‘ole story with Love picking up two more early fouls and went back to the pine. Leunen did just about everything for the Panthers and cut the deficit to as close as seven.

After Leunen connected on a three point play, Love was sent back to the scorer’s table and got back into the action at 5:37 in the fourth. And his teammates knew it. The 6-foot-8 freshman had three outlet passes for fast break buckets and a beautiful high post bounce pass to a cutting teammate for an easy bucket.

While the game didn’t go as the 1,500 or so in attendance wanted, two givens remained established: Leunen is still one of the top players in the country and Love is indeed ‘next’ but just not today.

Leunen led Redmond with 18 points, 15 rebounds and six blocks. Love finished with seven points and eight rebounds in just 14 minutes of play. Hannes Gehring led all scorers with 19 points.

Jesuit 60, Aloha 47

Josh Tarver got hot from on the perimeter and sank four three pointers en route to his team high 18 points. The 6-foot-2 junior guard is a strong shooter that gets deadly when he heats up.

Teammate Dan Nugent scored 14 points and textbook shooting, hitting seven of nine shots from the field.

7-footer Joe Wolfinger had another strong game with 20 points, 11 rebounds and a couple of blocked shots. Although his size doesn’t resemble that of a true center, he’ll get some inquiries from schools because of his play at the LSI.

Lincoln 51, Georgetown Prep 47

Something happened to Georgetown Prep’s goal in the second half. A force field or some sort of anti-scoring mechanism was placed the rim because the Little Hoyas could not connect at all in point blank range in the third quarter, missing 10 straight interior buckets. After the unknown force was removed, a game broke out.

Omar Leary played an amazing second half, scoring 17 of his 22 points in the stanza. The 5-foot-9 point guard showed a lot of heart and leadership in the win and rallied his young team together.

LaTravis Turner came alive in the fourth quarter when he took a cross court lob from Terrell Jenkins and laid it up over Hibbert. Turner again used his athleticism to sky for a defensive rebound and took the foul. On the line, he sunk both free throws, giving the Cardinals the five point lead and sealed the victory. The athletic junior finished with 10 points and five rebounds.

Lincoln’s 6-foot-10 center Colin Halberg should be commended for his defense on 7-foot-2 Roy Hibbert. Halberg had a hand in Hibbert’s 10 point blank misses. Hibbert went 8-18 from the floor for his 20 points and pulled down a game high 14 rebounds.

Stanford was on hand to watch Davis Nwankwo. Unfortunately for the Cardinal staff, they haven’t had a chance to see the 6-foot-8 forward do anything all that impressive as he went 2-10 from the field.

Best of Day Two

Best game: Georgetown Prep and Lincoln. It had the energy of the crowd and the perfect ingredients for the upset. Thanks to the heart of Omar Leary and the pesky defense of Lincoln, the home crowd went home happy.

Best player: Matt Shaw of Verbum Dei. The sophomore went off for 25 points and 14 rebounds against Marist. Shaw could do very little wrong and played a great game. He’ll be tested tomorrow when Verbum Dei faces off against Jefferson’s Brian Morris.

Best Where Did He Come: Marquis Hall of Jefferson. The sophomore came up with 20 points in his first varsity start. His name is already being mentioned with the great guards from Jefferson.