FORKS — Losing your top scorer and biggest physical presence on both sides of the court to foul trouble is not a great position to be in a close contest.
In a game with Pacific League boys basketball championship and district seeding implications? Even less advantageous.
But there’s a reason why Forks practices such a scenario. With senior Trey Baysinger sitting out for much of the third quarter with four fouls, the Spartans hung tough in a 57-50 win over Ilwaco on Tuesday night.
The victory put Forks (7-0) two games up in the win column on the Fishermen (5-2), with the Spartans sporting a 2-0 advantage in head-to-head matchups.
“Not at all,” Forks head coach Rick Gooding said when asked if this was how he saw the game unfolding.
“Trey not being out there, there are times at practice where we just pull Trey out and say, ‘Trey has four fouls,’ and we have to adapt. Derrick [Beebe] came in and did a great job being a big body and helping us out in the middle. Trey is a big part of what we do, and he didn’t play much of the third quarter, and we scored 20 points.”
Up 22-20 at halftime, Baysinger scored an early bucket but was whistled for an offensive foul — his fourth — with 6:55 left in the third quarter.
“I definitely got in foul trouble and things were getting a little chippy,” Baysinger said. “When I was out, my teammates picked it up for me. Derrick came in and gave good minutes, Tony [Flores] came up clutch in the second half, Raymond [Davis] came up clutch, Logan [Olson] hit that clutch 3, and overall it was just a great team win.”
Flores sparked the Spartans, scoring all 14 of his points in the second half. He hit back-to-back 3s interspersed with a scrap over a loose ball at midcourt that got the small crowd into the contest in the third.
“Same scenario as when we went down there [in a 57-43 win], he hit two huge 3s in the third quarter,” Gooding said.
“It doesn’t take a great shooter to hit those shots, it takes a gutsy shooter to hit those shots, and we needed them.”
Beebe added four of his seven points in the third, while Raymond Davis hit two big buckets as Forks went up 42-39 after three quarters.
Baysinger returned with 6:32 to play and scored six points in the final frame while playing with an abundance of caution in order not to pick up that fifth and final foul.
“I like to jump out on passes and reach in, and coach told me I needed to lay back and rely on my teammates, and they picked it up for me,” Baysinger said.
“Most of the fourth quarter we ran 1-3-1 [zone defense]. We saw they were shooting a bunch of 3s from the top of the key and the corner, so we jumped into it to eliminate the 3s and it worked out for us in the end.”
Forks’ switch into the 1-3-1 from its usual 2-3 zone limited Ilwaco’s 3-point shooting and allowed Baysinger to defend a different spot on the floor — keeping him out on the court for the remainder of the game.
“We were at a point in the game where it was pick your poison, defend the 3 or defend the high-post jump shot,” Gooding said. “We had to adapt a little. We went into the 1-3-1 a little bit with Trey in the middle there with him, and we can space out and cover their shooters.”
A Logan Olson 3-pointer, earned after some scrappy second-chance rebounding by Riley Pursley, gave Forks a 49-43 lead with 3:40 to play.
Ilwaco never went away, but the Spartans knocked down 6 of 10 free throws in the final quarter, including some intentional foul shots late in the game when the contest grew even chippier.
“I wouldn’t call it trash talk,” Baysinger said. “Just good competition. This team was second in the league last year and we were league champs [in the 1A Evergreen], and we are the new guys.”
Does this set up a growing Pacific League rivalry? Baysinger thinks so.
“It looks like we will have one for many years,” he said.
Forks hosts Raymond (1-6) tonight.
Forks 57, Ilwaco 50
Ilw. 6 14 19 11 — 50
Forks 16 6 20 15 — 57
Forks (57): Baysinger 16, Flores 14, Olson 7, Beebe 7, Pursley 5, Horejsi 4, Davis 4.
Ilwaco (50): J. Turner 17, B. Turner 14, Glenn 8, Morris 7, Needham 4.
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-406-0674 or mcarman@peninsuladaily news.com.
