They made the most of what they had, but the short-benched Community School boys' varsity basketball team just ran out of gas during last week's Northside 1A Sub-District tournament at Shoshone.
Coach Mike Wade's #5-seeded Cutthroats (8-12, 5-5 home) opened up Thursday with a 52-41 win over #4-seeded Dietrich. But top-seeded Carey and #3-seeded Bliss swept the next two games from the Cutthroats 66-43 and 59-29 and swept them out of the seven-team double elimination meet.
Wade said after Friday's Carey game, "After our hard game against Dietrich the night before, we stayed close with the Panthers for the first half and were down seven at half. But we ran out of gas in the second half and Carey put us away."
Running on fumes could have described the Cutthroats in Saturday's loser-out game against Bliss. The Bears led 27-15 at half but trounced the Cutthroats 32-14 after intermission. Wade's team shot a season-low 31% from the field and went 1-for-14 from behind the arc.
"We played hard, got plenty of opportunities but the rock wouldn't fall and outstanding block-outs by Bliss' defense kept us from getting many second chances," said Wade. "But the Bliss coach told me afterward that it was their best shooting game of the season."
Sun Valley's boys dropped six of their final seven games, but got an outstanding effort all year long by five starters who logged most of the playing time.
They were Mac Whittington (13.8 ppg, 17 double figure games), Spencer Harris (12.7 ppg), Christian Cairncross (10.0 ppg), Max Harris (6.5 ppg) and Ian Ingram (3.4 ppg).
They came together for one final outstanding effort in Thursday's "mini-upset" over Dietrich, Wade said. Whittington, the 6-5 junior post, posted his 10th double/double of the season, out of the 20 games.
Putting four players in double figures is no easy task, but the Cutthroats did it for just the second time all season. They were Whittington (14 points, 12 boards/5 offensive), Spencer Harris (12 points, 5 rebounds), Max Harris (12 points, 4 steals) and Cairncross (10 points).
Junior point Ingram (4 points, 6 assists) also got the job done against Dietrich (8-12), which ended up going two-and-out with a 31-29 loss to #6-seeded Shoshone on Saturday.
"We had excellent balance between post play, outside shots and basket attacks, and balanced scoring as well," said Wade. "And our defense was solid throughout the game with very few breakdowns."
Poor shooting plagued both teams for the first three quarters and the Cutthroat lead was only 38-36 going into the fourth period. "We finally found the range and got our shooting on track in the fourth, hitting seven of 10 shots," said Wade.
Friday's meeting between Carey and The Community School, third clash of the season between the Blaine County squads, featured a strong first half by Wade's squad.
Spencer Harris scored 10 of his team-high 18 points in the first half and Whittington (15 points) pulled down 10 of his 15 rebounds before intermission. "We defended well in the lane the whole game," Wade said.
But the Cutthroats had no answer for Carey's outstanding guard play, with Allen Peck, Cody Baird and James Carlson combining for 48 of Carey's 66 points.
Wade said, "That trio also got many points off of converting turnovers from their great full-court and half-court defense in the third quarter when they made a 24-14 run at us—and we just couldn't recover."
Cairncross (9 points) drilled three 3-pointers against Carey, and one more in Saturday's loss to Bliss. Others against Bliss: Whittington (14 points), Spencer Harris (8 points, 7 assists) and Ingram (4 steals).
With eight wins, the Cutthroats doubled their victory total compared to last winter.
Whittington (443 points two years) finished with 275 points, Spencer Harris 253 (406 two years), Cairncross 199, Max Harris 129, Ingram 67, Casper Brun 19, Eddy Albarran 15, Lucas Vorsteveld 9 and Si Park 3.
Senior captain Cairncross (484 points career) had 49 of the team's 71 3-pointers. That total was second only to Shayne Buckner of Richfield among Northside sharpshooters. For his three-year varsity career Cairncross finished with a school-record 104 3-pointers, exceeding the previous record of 96 set by John Hayes in 2004.
At the free throw line the Cutthroats were out-shot 295-195 and were outscored 163-117.
Spencer Harris takes the ball to the hole.
