Cruiser Boys Sit Atop Evergreen League With 4-0 Record

After picking up their second league win of the season the previous week in a 71-32 thrashing of Montesano that saw Reilly McIlraith drop 28 on the Bulldogs, the Cruisers found themselves smack dab in the middle of league play with two Evergreen 1A league games last week.

On Tuesday (1/18), the league-leading Cruisers traveled to Hoquiam to take on the Grizzlies and came away with a 58-48 victory behind the 19 points of Shay Brannon.

Shay Brannon drives the lane and scores two of his game-high 19 points in a win against Hoquiam this past week. Photo: Alyssa Wood-Shotswell

The Cruisers would jump out to a quick 17-8 lead in the first quarter thanks to Reilly McIlraith and Kyle Cox’s 6 points each.

Cox would kick in 6 more points in the 2nd quarter and the Cruisers led 27-16 at the half.

That is when Brannon would take over and score 14 of his game-high 19 points to help Eatonville cruise to a 58-48 win.

As mentioned above, Brannon would finish with 19 points, with Cox tallying 14, and McIlraith finishing with 13.

The Cruisers would then pack up and head to Tenino to take on the Beavers in another Evergreen 1A showdown.

The Beavers are a young team with four freshmen and one senior in their starting line-up. They did their best to hang with the much bigger and more experienced Cruisers and trailed by only 1 point at the half.

But a critical 18-7 run in the 3rd quarter led by the inside game of the bigger and more experienced Cruiser squad broke open the tight contest. After Senior guard, Reilly McIlraith kept the Cruisers in the game in the 1st half scoring 12 of his 16, big Jake Wood and Kyle Cox took over in the paint. The duo scored 16 of the team's 18 3rd quarter points and pushed their lead to a dozen points.

Foul trouble for the Beavers two big guys, Takari Hickle and Jack Burkhardt kept Burkhardt out of the 3rd quarter on the bench with 4 fouls and Hickle had to be careful with 3 fouls. Wood and Cox took full advantage of that by dominating the inside with a couple of mid-range swish shots to help lead the Cruisers to the 63-45 win.

Four Cruisers hit double figures led by McIlraith with 16, Jake Wood finished with 14, Kyle Cox had 13 and Shay Brannon finished with 10. Jakob Lucht off the bench knocked down 7 and Waylan Mettler had 3. The Cruisers could have had a larger lead at halftime and a bigger winning margin but were just 11-28 from the free-throw line.

Following those two road games, the Cruisers would play host to the #7 ranked White River Hornets (9-1 overall, 7-0 in league play) out of the SPSL 2A league.

Eatonville knew it would be a battle coming into the game and they seemed to be up to the task as they led 35-34 at the half behind the hot shooting of Jakob Lucht who would nail down 4 three-pointers in the half.

The Hornets would go on a 21-12 run in the 3rd quarter to distance themselves from the Cruisers at 55-47.

In the final quarter, Eatonville would fight back and trim the lead to just four points with 22 seconds left in the game but would need to foul the Hornets to stop the clock and White River would convert those free throw attempts to hand the Cruisers a 70-63 loss.

The Cruisers would be led by Lucht’s 14 points. Kyle Cox would contribute with 12 points of his own.

The Cruisers are now sitting at 4-0 in league play and 8-3 overall.

Next up for the Cruisers will be a home game against Toledo on Monday (1/24) at 5:15 pm, then an away non-league game at Castle Rock HS on Tuesday (1/25 @ 7 pm), and then finishing the week off Thursday at Montesano HS for a league match-up at 7 pm.