KENT - Sometimes a wake up call is not received.
This seemed to be the scenario on on Saturday, Dec. 22, at the ShoWare Shootout basketball classic in a 57-24 Bear Creek boys basketball defeat of Evergreen Lutheran as the 9 a.m. tournament opener.
Evergreen Lutheran began the encounter in a primarily passive state. Mistakes reigned supreme with passes directed to the twilight zone of turnovers. In addition, the Grizzlies penetrated the inside nearly at will for close range, easy baskets and great looks.
On the other hand, the Eagles from Des Moines experienced great difficulty in negotiating their way through the Bear Creek zone in order to obtain good shot opportunities as the Grizzlies piled up a 17-0 lead en route to the constantly cascading margin of the lead, holding a 55-12 margin at one point.
Team statistics showed the story of this one.
Bear Creek's halftime rebounding advantage of 27-16 gave way to a 43-33 lead for the game. First half offensive rebounds favored Bear Creek 15-3 while game offensive rebounds were 19-5. Relating to this fact were the first half second chance points advantage of 11-4 that became 15-9. The Grizzlies shot 17-of-43 from the field before halftime and closed with 24-for-69. Evergreen Lutheran was 4-of-18 and 10-for-38 respectively.
Evergreen Lutheran was led by Karl Leitzke's five points and nine rebounds. Bear Creek was paced by the 14 points of Jesse Luenberger as scoring and rebounds were spread among a host of payers with both teams relying on reserves primarily in the second half.
