Seattle Prep Sails Past Bainbridge for Fifth Seed

Seattle Prep Sails Past Bainbridge for Fifth Seed
By Steven Dion

Thursday night marks day three of the Metro League tournament and the battle for the five seed pitted the Prep Panthers and Bainbridge Spartans. Both teams have already punched their ticket to districts but the result of this contest determined the matchups in the SeaKing tourney. The winner would face the 7th seed from Metro in West Seattle and the team with the loss would meet third seed from KingCo in Mount Si. The Panthers have beaten the Spartans in their lone matchup on January 17th, would the visitors from the island return the favor?

The game got off to a slow start as the first points of the game were not scored for the first 2:10 of the game. Prep sharpshooter Jack Stewart was unable to connect on his early attempts from the perimeter, something uncharacteristic for the junior guard. However, the Spartans had scoring issues in the first quarter too as the first bucket came at 4:11 left in the frame. Give Prep’s defense credit as BHS scored only seven points in the first quarter. Coach Kelly’s defensive gameplan continued to succeed as the Panthers established good position to disrupt shots and forces offensive charges. Sophomore Eric Van Hare was a spark off the bench as he drew back to back charges before the half. The low scoring nature of this game would take a 22-16 Prep lead into the break.

The second half would continue the exciting matchup of bigs in SPHS forward Sean Gummersall and Spartan center Oskar Dieterich. They scored some of their team’s most crucial buckets as the posts registered eight and seven points respectively. Seattle Prep’s dynamic guard Aaron Nettles played with his high intensity style on both ends of the floor as one of his highlights was an and-one after knocking down a circus shot in traffic. The freshman scored a game-high 14 points. Bainbridge guard Blake Swanson knocked down shots late, but the damage was done and the game was too far out for the Spartans to recover. The relentless Seattle Prep defense was the x-factor of this contest as BHS was only able to score 42 in a playoff game. The Panthers were able to pick up a 57-42 win in front of their home crowd.

Top Performers:
Bainbridge
Trent Schulte – 9 points (3 3-pt FG’s, all in fourth quarter)

Seattle Prep
Aaron Nettles – 14 points (2/3 FT’s, 2 3-pt FG’s)