The Lakewood Cougar boys basketball team took to the court for the first time this season against an experienced Sedro-Woolley side. With six sophomores making their first appearance on the varsity the Cougars showed a bit of inexperience, but overall they looked very good and should be a competitive team this season. Unfortunately, Sedro put together a big third quarter and pulled away enough to hold off the upstart Cougars 71-65.
Leading the way for Lakewood was senior Terrence Orodonez, one of the few players on the Cougars with varsity experience. Ordonez found his way into the lane on numerous occasions and notched a game high 25 points. Sophomore post Nathan Hesselman chipped in 10 of his own.
The first quarter was a back and forth struggle between the teams. A steal by Michael Leach set up an easy lay-up for Fabrice Lays to make the score 9-8 in favor of Sedro. Nathan Black then banged in a corner jumper to give Lakewood their first lead. Hesselman made a spin move on the baseline one minute later to give Lakewood a 14-13 lead at the end of the quarter.
In the second quarter, Ordonez started to assert himself. The senior guard came through for six points as Lakewood held their own on both ends. At halftime, the Cougars trailed only 29-33. Ordonez picked up right where he left off to start the third quarter, squeezing through traffic in the lane to finish two nice drives. Sedro-Woolley began to assert itself offensively jumping out to a 42-36 advantage before a technical foul that should have swung momentum back to Lakewood. The Cougars were awarded two free throws and the basketball after a Cubs forward reacted sharply to a foul call. Lakewood missed both free throws and then turned the ball over on the ensuing possession, allowing Sedro to escape unscathed.
As the game started to slip away for Lakewood, Hesselman brought them back into it with an old fashioned three-point play, bucket plus the foul, to make the score 44-51.
To open the fourth quarter, Ordonez continued his scoring spree with three straight baskets. But Lakewood was trading buckets at that point and could not narrow the margin to anything closer than five.
With Lakewood trailing by eight and the game getting down to crunch time, Ordonez again led the charge with three straight buckets. His efforts brought the Cougars to within 60-66, but a costly turnover from Lakewood gave Sedro all the opportunity they needed to hold on for the win. Cameron Fry nailed a three pointer right before the buzzer to close the game 65-71.
For Lakewood, there was plenty to build on.
We missed a lot of open three pointers, a lot of open jumpers, said Ordonez following the loss. Were a young team and that contributed to a lot of those mistakes.
Theres nothing that happened out there that we cant fix, said Coach Ron Thorvilson, all the problems are correctable.