Knight show mettle at CK

SILVERDALE — The red-hot Knights gave the Central Kitsap Cougars a lesson Wednesday night as the teams clashed in a physical Bridge Division boys basketball game — you may slow Marvin Williams down, but you have to watch out for the rest of the team.

Williams found himself in an unfamiliar spot in the first half as the Cougars “Diamond-one” defense led by Aaron Brien kept him away from the basket.

“Everyone else was scoring so it was no big deal,” said Williams, who scored 16 of his 18 points in the second half as the Cougars switched to a man defense.

With their star out of the picture, Phil Houston knew he had to make things happen.

“Marvin’s our big guy and we have to get him the ball,” said Houston, who scored 14 of the Knight’s 22 first-half points. “But tonight he wasn’t on, so I stepped up. I started shooting the ball and it was going in.”

Houston finished with 18 points as he took advantage of his scoring opportunities.

“Phil stepped up and played hard,” Bremerton coach Casey Lindberg said. “He saw spots and took the ball in.”

After a slow start, the Knights (4-3 League, 8-5) turned it around early in the second quarter by converting two CK (2-5, 4-9) turnovers into four points. The two teams flopped the lead several times in the second quarter until Houston gave the Knights a 20-19 lead in the final minute.

With the change in defense, the Knights started the second half with a 9-3 run and brushed off a late third quarter run as CK narrowed the score to 37-35 on a 3-pointer by Lukas Henne who led all CK scorers with 15 points.

Bremerton hosts Shelton Wednesday while Port Angeles is at Central Kitsap. Both games start at 7 p.m.

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