By Darren Woods
Evergreen Sports Information
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Evergreen State let a 12 point halftime lead slip away as they were outscored by 20 points in the second half in an exhibition loss to cross-town rival Saint Martin’s University Tuesday night at The Evergreen State College.
Going into the game, 1st year head coach Arvin Mosley, Jr. said that SMU would be “one of the biggest teams we play all year.” On paper, the Saints dwarfed the Geoducks as they boasted five players over 6’5” while Evergreen’s Michael Brumsey (Tacoma, Wash. / Stadium HS) was the home team’s only player over 6’5”.
The Geoducks, however, fought SMU’s size with speed and frustrated the Saint’s big men with numerous double teams in the first half. Evergeen guarded a 39-27 lead at halftime and held the Saint’s 6’5” 265-pound Blake Poole (Eugene, Ore, / Sheldon HS) to just nine points while he turned the ball over three times. Evergreen’s Johnny Sarysz (Seattle, Wash. / Lindbergh / South Puget Sound) hit two consecutive three-pointers just after halftime to give the Geoducks their largest lead of the game at 48-32.
Saint Martin’s caught fire midway through the second half and outscored the sluggish Geoducks 31-13 to take their first lead since the first half. With less than two minutes to go in the game the away team began to pull away and finally prevailed by eight points with a final score of 71-63.
SMU’s Poole was the star of the game with a double-double scoring 23 points while adding 20 rebounds and two assists.
Evergreen had four players in double-digit scoring with Tyrell Dixon (Tacoma, Wash. / Mt. Tahoma HS) leading the way with 15 points and five rebounds. Marice Tolliver (Tacoma, Wash. /Mt. Tahoma/Lower Columbia) also had 15 points and was near a double-double of his own adding 8 rebounds. Senior Josh Troyer (Vancouver, Wash. / Evergreen HS/ Lower Columbia) showed why he was voted to the All-CCC preseason team as he contributed on both sides of the ball with 12 points, four rebounds, two steals, an assist and a block.
After the game coach Mosley stated, “[the team] put ¾ of a game together. For 30 minutes we played like an NAIA tournament team.” In the end, Mosley added, “we didn’t make great choices in a couple stretches.
The Geoducks host Westmont College this Saturday in the CRC Gymnasium at 7:30pm. It will be Evergreen’s last game at home before they depart for a two game road- trip to Denver.
