Taylor Has Career Night, Cruisers Improve To 4-0 In League Play

The Eatonville Cruiser boys basketball team lost a close non-league matchup against The Northwest School on Monday, January 16th before bouncing back on Wednesday the 18th in a crucial Evergreen Conference game to defeat the Elma Eagles.

Last week Eatonville ran into a sharpshooter in Hoquiam's Michael Lorton-Watkins but was able to overcome his 42-point performance and still grab the victory. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said about Miles Nelson of The Northwest School. Nelson scored a game-high 36 points and the Cruiser comeback fell short as The Northwest School defeated Eatonville 68-66 last Monday evening.

Eatonville would fall behind early and Northwest School would extend that lead in each of the next two quarters. Entering the final quarter the Cruisers trailed by 14 at 57-43.

The Cruisers would mount a comeback. They would go on a 10-2 run to start the quarter and pull within 2 points behind Shay Brannon's 11 points and Shane Taylor came off the bench to score 8 points during the comeback.

With 9.2 seconds left on the clock and the ball, Eatonville needed to run the full length of the court to try and tie it up or win it. Brannon would get a good look at a 3-pointer from the top of the key for the win, but it was off the mark. Taylor was there for the rebound but his putback was also off the mark as time expired.

Box Score

NORTHWEST SCHOOL 68, EATONVILLE 66

Eatonville 13 15 15 23 - 66

Northwest School 17 20 20 11 - 68

Eatonville: Shay Brannon 27, Walker Bruun 12, Hunter Klumpar 9, Ky;e Cox 8, Shane Taylor 8, Griffin Clevenger 2.

Northwest School: Miles Nelson 36, Seth Horn 23, Ariya Sethi 4, Soren Traina 3, Mehkai Parmer 2.

Following that tough loss to The Northwest School, the Cruisers needed to re-group and focus on their next opponent.

Missing their leading scorer and floor general Shay Brannon due to an illness, the Cruisers headed to Elma for another Evergreen Conference match-up. Eatonville came into the game with an unblemished 3-0 record in league play up against a 2-1 Eagles team looking to knock the Cruisers off to force a tie for first.

With Brannon out sick, Head Coach TJ Cotterill turned to senior guard/forward Shane Taylor to start in place of Brannon. Taylor did not disappoint. He would finish the night with his first career double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds. He hit three crucial 3-pointers late in the game and blocked five Eagle shots.

"Shane has had a tough go this season. It's been a roller coaster between his wrist injury, some nasty illnesses, and an ankle injury. When he's at full strength he's such a spark for us. We can plug him in at any position and he's always ready to give you his best," Head Coach TJ Cotterill said of Taylor.

Tied at 14-14 after the first quarter, Elma came out in the second quarter on a mission. They would go on a 10-0 run and take a 12-point lead late in the quarter before the Cruisers trimmed the lead to 9 at the half trailing 36-27.

"Tonight, we needed rebounds, contested shots, and Shane added his trademark unwavering confidence and knocked down his shots. What was great was he never forced anything. When you're open, we tell guys to tell themselves, "Heck yes, I'm shooting." Shane did that tonight and I'm sure we'll see it again."

Midway through the third, Eatonville would close the gap to 4 before Elma extended it back out to 9. The Cruisers would battle back to trim it down to 3 points with the help of Griffin Clevenger's 9 points in the period as the third quarter came to a close.

Walker Bruun would nail a crucial 3-pointer at the 4:45 mark to give Eatonville their first lead of the game at 57-56.

With just under 4 minutes to play, Elma's AJ Holmes would get a bucket to put Elma up 58-57……that would be the last time the Eagles would score the rest of the game.

Eatonville would tie the game up on a Kyle Cox free throw on their next possession that would begin a 10-0 run, highlighted by two back-to-back 3-pointers by Shane Taylor, to close out the game and take a 68-58 victory.

The Cruisers' tough non-league schedule to start the season has started to pay dividends in many of their wins in close games.

"Absolutely on those lessons from our nonleague games," Cotterill said. "We've played a lot of close, tough games and we talked earlier in the year that those could define us, for either good or bad. We've chosen to respond with it defining us for good and getting tougher and closer as a team because of it. We've got a long way to go, but we're understanding the play we have to come out with one day, one practice, one game at a time."

Box Score

EATONVILLE 68, ELMA 58

Eatonville 14 13 22 19 - 68

Elma 14 22 16 6 - 58

Eatonville: Walker Bruun 28, Shane Taylor 19, Griffin Clevenger 14, Kyle Cox 5, Michael Stogsdill 2

Elma: Gibson Cain 23, Traden Carter 12, AJ Holmes 10, Cason Seaberg 9, Carter Studer 4

The Cruisers will head to Montesano on Tuesday, Jan. 24 to finish off their two-game series with the Bulldogs before coming back home for a tough re-match with the second-place Tenino Beavers on Thursday, Jan. 26 at Rainier Connect Arena at Eatonville HS. They will finish off the week by heading to Cardinal Country to take on their longtime rivals the Orting Cardinals in a non-league affair on Friday, Jan 27. Tip-off for all 3 games will be at 7 pm.