An excellent effort fell short for the Seattle Christian boys basketball team in last Friday's 59-42 home loss to Class 1A top-ranked Cascade Christian. The visiting Cougars are 17-2 overall and lead the 1A Nisqually League at 11-0. Seattle Christian dropped to 10-9 overall and 6-6 league.

"The guys were aggressive in going to play basketball," said SCS assistant coach Matt Althoff. "We weren't able to take care of the ball, and that led to some of their runs. At times, we tried to do too much. It was a great game and effort. We're really clicking, now. We're solidly in fourth place. We're happy with the effort we had tonight."

In the previous encounter in Puyallup, the Cougars blitzed the Warriors 82-48

For this match up, Seattle Christian trailed 8-3 before baskets from Richard Jensen and Chaise DeVries closed the gap to 8-7. Cody Miller drained a three-pointer to send the Warriors ahead and Mackinnon Simpson's three-point goal broke a 10-10 tie and gave Seattle Christian a 13-10 lead after one quarter.

The second quarter had the teams trading scoring runs en route to three ties, but the Cougars edged ahead 24-22 at the half.

Seattle Christian then briefly closed the gap. Bursting into the paint, Miller was fouled and sank two free throws for a 27-26 SCS deficit with nearly three minutes gone in the second half. Seven consecutive Cascade Christian points enlarged the margin to 34-26 and the Cougars ended the quarter with the lead at 40-30.

Jensen drove right down the middle of the key, resulting in a standard three-point play ahead of Simpson's two charity tosses to draw Seattle Christian within 40-35 early in the fourth quarter. Cascade Christian responded with a 10-0 scoring run to gain a 50-35 dominance.

With less than three minutes remaining, the Warriors were within 50-40 on the strength of Shawn Abe's field goal and a three-pointer from Simpson. Seizing the boards, Cascade Christian bolted for breakaways to make the final score made the CCS advantage look more dominant than most of the game's action.

Cascade controlled the rebounds 53-41 with a resounding 26-14 offensive rebound margin. Seattle Christian had two players foul out and two players sitting at four fouls. The Cougars shot 25-for-33 from the free throw line to the Warriors' 7-for-12.

Jensen led the Warriors, scoring 13 points. Simpson closed out Senior night with eight points and 11 rebounds. Jensen scored seven points while DeVries added six points and seven rebounds.

Cody Shackett had 21 points and seven rebounds for Cascade Chrsitian as TJ Tuttle notched 16 points and five rebounds.

Seniors Blake Weber, Johnny Sutherland, Brandon Farwell, Mackinnon Simpson and Matt Ventoza closed out their regular season home court career.