By Anastasia Stepankowsky

Nate Pryor juked, drove and soared his way to 28-points. With a sudden twist of his body, he passed the ball or drove down the court to put the ball through the net. But it wasn’t enough for the West Seattle Wildcats to upset the Rainier Beach Vikings in Metro Conference Sound Division boy’s basketball Tuesday night.

Pryor netted more than half of the Wildcats’ points in a 62-48 loss to the defending state 3A champions at Rainier Beach High School.

West Seattle (5-5) stuck with the first place Vikings (9-1) until well into the second half, and coach Keffrey Fazio was pleased with the Wildcats’ effort.

“When you come into this gym you know what kind of game you need to bring with you. I thought we did that,” Fazio said. “It just speaks that when we put our mind to something we can compete with just about anybody.”

The game opened with stingy defense. In fact, almost four minutes had elapsed from the first quarter, before either team got more than one score from the field. Rainier Beach led only 15-9 after the first quarter.

The Wildcats led briefly just before the half, but the Vikings, helped by a flying dunk by University of Washington recruit DeJounte Murray, put Rainier Beach ahead 28-27 at halftime.

A Viking flurry to open the second half upped the lead to 38-28. The Vikings never relinquished the lead, though West Seattle got within four or five points several times.

“You’re not really prepared for this type of pressure until you see it,” Fazio said. “…When you have empty possessions against good teams you end up on the wrong side of the scoreboard.”

Pryor believes Rainier Beach’s roster, dominated by juniors and seniors, underestimated the younger Wildcats.

“Teams are going to look at us different. We played hard and when we play bigger teams they just look over us. We’ve just got to keep our head right and just play hard,” Pryor said.

The sophomore guard just made a verbal commitment to the Seattle University Redhawks over the weekend.

“There are a lot of things that we didn’t do very well, but I think going forward I think the kids should understand that if they play collectively and as a team we can play just about anybody in the state,” Fazio said.

West Seattle hosts Ballard at 8 p.m. Friday.