HILLSBORO, Ore.-- A few years ago, participating in a premier holiday tournament such as the Les Schwab Invitational was never on the radar for coach Brent Merritt and his Eastside Catholic-WA team. That was until last year when the 3A school out of Sammamish, Wash. received an invite to play in the Invitational’s inaugural eight-team experimental tournament.
The Crusaders (5-0) ended up winning the entire competition last year and a few months later received an invite to play in the main 16-team field this winter.
On Thursday night, the Crusaders proved every bit deserving of that invite, leading by as many as 20 points as they took down the Wilsonville Wildcats, 78-69, in their first-ever game at the Les Schwab Invitational.
Junior’s Shane Nowell and Nolan Hickman combined for 40 points to lead the Crusaders while Gabe Reichle and Dakota Reber paced the Wildcats (3-3) with 23 and 14 points respectively.
“They came out fired up and with more intensity than us and we just backed down and played soft,” Reichle said. “I thought we just didn’t play tough enough. We got pushed around out there.”
Entering the fourth quarter down 18, the Wildcats needed a late rally and they got one. The Wildcats outscored the Crusaders 27-18 in the fourth quarter as Reichle and senior post Keegan Shivers came alive to help bring their team to within seven with just under two minutes remaining, but Eastside Catholic was able to pull away late to secure the win.
“I think it shows that we respond well to adversity,” Reichle said. “It was one of the stronger things about our team last year”
After a back-and-forth first half in which both teams came out looking to push the pace, it was the Crusaders who took advantage of a third-quarter spurt to build a double-digit lead that it would not relinquish. Hickman, a four-star player with scholarship offers ranging from Washington to Oklahoma, scored 14 of his points in the quarter as Eastside Catholic outscored the Wildcats 27-18.
“Last year I didn’t play too good and it really bothered me,” Nowell said. “So I wanted to make sure I came back this year much stronger.”
While the Crusaders will be happy to leave their first game of the tournament with a win, they will need to be prepared quickly for an even more difficult matchup on Friday. With the win Eastside will play the winner of the night-cap game between Lake Oswego and Bishop Gorman-Las Vegas.
“There’s a lot of good teams in this tournament, everybody’s good,” Nowell said. “And each game you got to continue to get better and better and execute down the stretch. We’ll do better at that tomorrow.”
