DUVALL — Coach Ray LaBate has been waiting for his young

Red Wolves to put together four solid quarters of basketball. What he didn’t

expect was an extra period of play.

The Cedarcrest boys basketball team went into overtime before

losing its third game of the week, a 63-59 defeat to Highline High on the

road Saturday afternoon.

“The result may have been different if we had been in this position

before,” said senior standout Michael Smith. “We didn’t know how to

handle the pressure of overtime. We were not ready to step up and win a game

that we should have won.”

The visiting Red Wolves trailed by five points with less than a minute

to play when Smith took a rebound, drove the length of the court and hit

a three-point basket to cut the deficit to only two points. But that was as

close as Cedarcrest would come to victory as the home team sank one of two

free throws to ice the win.

The loss was the third of the week for Cedarcrest and dropped their

season record to a disappointing 0-8, including 0-3 against KingCo

conference opponents.

“The team finally put together four solid quarters of good ball

against Highline,” said LaBate. “They

may have gotten a little nervous in overtime when they realized that

they could win one.”

Friday night Cedarcrest dropped a physical contest to a strong squad

from Sammamish, 74-43, in Duvall. The Totems jumped out to a 25-point

lead in the second quarter and coasted to the one-sided win. Many

of Sammamish’s baskets were the result of uncontested lay-ups from the

Red Wolves’ turnovers.

Smith led the Wolves scoring with 11 points. He was supported on

Friday night by senior Ryan Dunn with 8 points, and juniors Nick Rich

with six and James Conrick with four points, respectively.

Cedarcrest trailed 50-22 at the intermission, but the visitors tacked

on three points on technical foul free throws to put the home team down

by 31 at the break. One player from each team was ejected for shoving and

foul language late in the contest.

LaBate was pleased that his team was able to play even with the

starters on the ranked Sammamish team in the second half.

“The boys showed a lot of maturity and ran the offense well in the

second half, but the hole we had dug in the first half was just too deep,”

said LaBate.

Last Tuesday Cedarcrest fell behind early and lost by 33 in a

KingCo clash against Skyline. Conrick led all Red Wolves’ scorers with eight

points as the Spartan squad collapsed on Smith at the offensive end of the

floor. The visiting Spartans jumped out to a 17-point lead in the first quarter

and padded the cushion by eight points before halftime. The Wolves were

limited to only nine points in each of the first two quarters.

Cedarcrest did a little better in the second half, scoring 13 points in

the third and fourth quarters. However Skyline responded with 19 and

13 points of their own to keep the Red Wolves out of the winner’s circle.

Cedarcrest played its last game before the millennium when they

traveled to the peninsula on Tuesday to take on North Kitsap in an

afternoon contest.

LaBate said he would give his team four days off during the

two-week school holiday but scheduled voluntary practices on everyday

except Christmas and New Years.

“We just need more time playing on the same court together,” the

first-year coach explained. “We are certainly not to the point where we

can just pack in for two weeks and expect to come out and be ready to play.”