SPRINGFIELD – Friday night’s 60-59 overtime loss to Sheldon was painful in a number of ways for the top-ranked Thurston Colts boys basketball team.
For starters, they lost what seemed like an insurmountable 18-point lead. It was their second straight loss, and it came against their crosstown rival. Worst of all, though, reigning Midwestern League Player of the Year Nate Stiffler left the game in the third quarter with yet another injury.
It all added up to Sheldon’s Nathan Sheley scoring two late baskets in overtime and Thurston freshman sharpshooter Treyson Hill missing a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
‘It was a game of two halves,’
“We shot really well in the first half, and they shot really well in the second half – it was a game of two halves,” Thurston coach Blaine Liberatore said. “It was 21-9 in the fourth quarter. We let Sheley get going – he really shot the heck out of it. When you give good shooters space like that, they’re gonna knock ’em down, and he did.
“They’re a good team, though. They’re a lot better than their record (7-5). There was no overlooking them. They made some adjustments and they made more plays than us down the stretch. But we had a great look there at the end. Treyson has been shooting 63 percent from 3 this year. We’ll take that. We had a great look. But we have to be better defensively.”
CRAIG STROBECK / THE CHRONICLE PHOTO
Noah Blair scored 17 of his game-high 26 points for the Colts (9-2) during the first half as Thurston took a 35-21 lead into the break. After trailing 6-4, Stiffler – who had missed the previous five games with bursitis in his Achilles tendon – drilled a 3-pointer to start a 21-2 run that gave Thurston a 25-8 lead early in the second quarter. The Colts would extend that margin to 31-13 on a Blair steal and layup with 4:38 left in the period.
Stiffler injured
It all started unraveling for the Colts at the 6:03 third-quarter mark. Stiffler went up for a shot and landed on an Irish opponent’s foot, rolling his “good” ankle. He limped off the court gingerly.
“He could be out a week, it could be a month,” Liberatore said. “God, my heart hurts for him. It’s tough. He’s a big piece of what we do.”
All of this adversity could be a lot to handle for some teams. Liberatore, whose team lost 58-47 to Class 6A No. 5 Oregon City on Dec. 30, says he thinks it might make his team stronger.
“We had a similar stretch in 2017. We lost two tough ones – we lost to a really good Crater team that was 23-1 and turned around and lost a buzzer-beater to North Eugene,” he recalled. “Oregon City is a really, really good team, and then we come to play Sheldon, which is a rivalry game, and we can’t quite get to the finish line. So these games make you better for league play.
“It will do one of two things, either it will make us better or it will make us worse. There’s not an in-between. But if I know these guys like I know them, it will make us better. All of our goals are still in front of us. None of our goals have been taken away.
“We want to win the league, we want to get to the final site, and we want to win the whole thing. But you have to keep your focus narrow, and worry about just getting better tomorrow.”
