On January 12th the Wilsonville boys basketball team went to Parkrose and competed in their 4th NWOC game this season.
Wilsonville up to this game was sitting at 8-4, with a 2-1 record in NWOC play with wins over Hood River Valley, and Rex Putnam with a loss to Centennial. Parkrose at the time was ranked #2 according to OSAA, behind Crook County. Wilsonville was ranked 11th.
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Start of the first quarter it was back and forth with both teams trading buckets, where Parkrose ended the quarter up 18-14 where Viktor Norris and Keone Gates combined with 12. It was the same story the second quarter where Jett Bruce racked up 5 points and 4 boards, while Jonah Mason and Aazee Breaux had 4 points each. Parkrose went to the locker room up 32-28.
Second half it was a complete different tale, Parkrose went on a 22-2 run to start the third quarter, which resulted in a 59-36 lead going into the fourth quarter.
A variety of players for Parkrose had a good game. Varryk Hardges ended with 17, Keone Gates had 13, Jaydin Hall and Viktor Norris combined for 24 and Keone James ended with 9 points and 6 steals. Wilsonville had no one end in double digits point wise. Jonah Mason ended with 9 points, Jett Bruce added 7 and Aazee Breaux had 6. Parkrose ended up winning this game 71-43. Wilsonville couldn’t get anything going in the second half, and Parkrose simply took advantage of that.
6’7 Sophomore forward ‘Jonah Mason reflects on the game, “I mean, we weren’t supposed to win this game before this game even happened.” Mason adds, “They’re a really good team, with a bunch of scrappy, quick guards and that bothered us.” Junior Aazee Breaux had an uncharacteristic game against the Broncos, putting up 6 points, had 6 turnovers and fouled out with five minutes left to go in the fourth quarter. Prior to this game, Aazee scored in double digits every game, also putting up 13.5 points a game in NWOC play. “The way they guarded Aazee you could tell that got to him, and our offense goes through him so that played a pretty big factor. Once they shut down Aazee we didn’t really know who to turn to.” Mason added.
Wilsonville turned the ball over 6 times in the first two minutes of the third quarter, where Parkrose converted on all of them which bumped the lead from four to twenty real fast. Wilsonville head coach Chris Roache had to call a timeout to stop the bleeding, but the Wildcats never fully recovered.
Junior guard Jett Bruce shares his thoughts, “I think we went into halftime, knowing we had a chance to keep it close in the second half, and maybe even win. But the third quarter happened and everything fell apart.” Bruce adds, “They were really physical and touchy. When we would inboud the ball, they’d have two guards ready to come at you, it felt like you couldn’t breathe.”
The #2 ranked Parkrose Broncos moved to 10-2 and Wilsonville dropped to 8-5. “We play them again next month at our place, we’ll be ready to go and it should be fun. We’ll see what happens on our court.” Bruce stated.
