Acorns escape with boys hoops win in Quilcene

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The recent past caught up to the Quilcene Rangers on their home court last Friday.

The Oakville Acorns outlasted the Rangers in varsity boys basketball, winning 70-63.

The Rangers played strong early on, but ran out of gas in the first quarter after struggling to keep up with the Acorns.

Blame the extended gridiron season — which culminated in a historic first-time trip to the state championship game — for a bit of football-induced fatigue on the Rangers’ part. The playoff run actually prompted the cancellation of Quilcene’s first three games of the basketball season.

“The guys are still healing up from their run to the state championship with our football team,” said Quilcene Coach Grant Cornelius.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing what we can do when we get healthy,” he added.

The first period saw some standout plays from the Rangers, on both ends of the court. Five Rangers put points on the board, with Nate Kieffer and James Miller combining for eight points.

Quilcene outscored Oakville in the second period, 11-10, closing the score to 34-25 at the half.

The Rangers and Acorns battled nearly even in the third quarter, with Oakville taking the 16-15 edge, as Acorn forward Courtney Price scored eight of his 15 points in the second half.

Kieffer taxed the twine for nine points in the third, however, and the Rangers saw added offense from Isaiah Reimann, Kevin Alejo, and Taylor Boling.

The Rangers outscored the Acorns 23-20 in the final stanza, with Kieffer dropping in 11 of his team-high 29 points.

“It was a good game for us,” Cornelius said. “We played very good defense overall.”

Kieffer had a solid game on both ends of the floor, and came up with some crowd-pleasing blocks in the first half.

“We had great success running the floor like we wanted to and getting the looks we wanted — but had some terrible luck actually getting the shots to drop. Was just one of those nights,” he added. 

Reimann and Alejo were both very effective driving the lane and getting good looks or assist opportunities, the coach added. 

Reimann finished with eight points, while Alejo added 12. 

“Our freshman, Taylor Boling, played all 48 minutes and was just solid for us,” Cornelius added. 

Boling finished with six points.

The Acorns had three players in double digits, with sophomore point guard Eddie Klatush scoring 29 points.

“Oakville’s point guard was very good at working off their ball screen to get open on us,” Cornelius said.

The loss dropped Quilcene to 1-1. The Rangers were scheduled to play Mary M. Knight High School at home early this week, with a rematch against Oakville on the road Thursday.