EvCC Trojan Men’s Basketball Win Season Opener 74-69

The team was lead by Sophomores Colton Spencer and JT Smith in a win over the SPSCC Clippers

Nate Oberg, Staff Reporter|November 19, 2022

Sophomore Guard J.T. Smith launches a three-pointer early in the game. Smith would go on to score 17 points.

The EvCC Trojan men’s basketball team opened up their season on Friday night, November 18th with a hard-fought victory over the South Puget Sound Warriors 74-69. The Warriors utilized a red-hot start from the sophomore guard and Alaska product Jason Montes who shot 6-10 from the field with 16 points in the first half, finishing with a game-high 21 “S. Puget Sound is a really tough team to play early in the year because they execute so well. They like to run their stuff. We don’t see very many teams like that over the course of the season.”Trojan’s Head Coach Mike Trautman said on the Warriors execution. The Trojans utilized their own guard play in the first half, getting key contributions from J.T Smith with 8 points on 3-6 shooting and Colton Spencer with 14 points on 6-10 shooting going into the locker room up 45-38.

The Trojan’s slow second-half start served as the catalyst for an 11-2 run by the Warriors capped by a corner three from Serbian-born guard Aleksa Milentijevic that pushed the lead to 57-53 with 9:50 to play which forced Coach Trautman to call timeout.

The Warriors gave the Trojans and Coach Trautman everything they could handle in the final 10 minutes of the second half, clinging to a 69-68 lead with 58.1 seconds to play before back-to-back buckets by Spencer, who had a team-high 20 points on 9-19 shooting and Smith gave them the late lead. Two key free throws by returning sophomore Leon Sayers iced the game with 7.5 seconds left to extend the lead to five, saving a potentially disastrous early season loss. “The clock was running down and we needed a bucket. We just grinded, I’m super proud of our team. We came together and didn’t crumble.” Spencer said.

The Trojan’s also got a boost underneath the boards from the 6’6 redshirt-freshman and Glacier Peak HS product forward Tucker Molina, who grabbed 9 rebounds and scored 10 points on an efficient 3-5 shooting while taming Madrid, Spain product, center Alejandro Cybak to just 8 points on 4-9 shooting.

Coach Trautman’s squad will look to build off their nail-biting win on Saturday when they face the Steward Academy Stars in what coach Trautman feels will be a ‘get-right’ game for the Trojan’s, “This will be a better game for us, we’re gonna get a chance to utilize our bench and see what those guys can do because we need them this season.”