Your future, our focus
Levi Londale took one look at the lineup Rocky Mountain put on the floor at Cabre Gym Tuesday night and realized he could feast.
The 6-foot-7, 230-pound sophomore forward for the Northwest College men’s basketball team recognized he could throw his weight around because the Bears had no one taller than 6-3.
Right from tip-off of the contest against the Rocky junior varsity, Londale followed the logical script and his strong first half lifted the Trappers to a dominating intermission lead and an easier-than-the-score-read 90-74 victory.
The win was Northwest’s sixth in a row as coach Brian Erickson used every healthy player. Four of them came through with double-figure scoring.
“I just pushed myself to go all out 100 percent of the time,” said Londale who scored 14 points and grabbed 5 rebounds in less than 19 minutes of playing time. “Six in a row. That feels really, really good. We’re building on that.”
The Trappers, 6-3, shot 50.8 percent from the floor and made 71.4 percent of their free throws. They led 52-31 at the half and by as much as 77-46 before Rocky staged a mini-comeback when Northwest slipped into reckless ball handling over the last stretch of the game.
“The last 10 minutes we got sloppy,” Londale said.
Freshman guard Blake Hinze of Cody was high man for Northwest with 16 points, hitting four 3-pointers. It was Hinze’s third game of at least 16 points in the team’s last four.
Guard Jonathan Koud added 15 points, pushing the ball up court and slicing through the Bears’ defense.
Erickson was not thrilled with the late lapses, but he loved the way Koud forced the pace to speed up the game.
“When we can play downhill, running, we’re at our best,” Erickson said. “When he (Koud) attacks, he’s pretty good, but it starts on the defensive end.”
Matching Londale with 14 points was 6-6 Luc Lombardy, although he was making long-range shots, not scoring in the paint. This is the third straight game Lombardy, who is from Villeurbanne, France, nailed four 3-point shots after an early-season shooting slump.
“I was just working to get my shot,” said Lombardy, who is much more fluent in French than English. “If my teammates can get me the ball when I am open, I can make shots.”
Erickson said Lombardy is getting much more comfortable with playing U.S. basketball versus the European game he grew up with.
“For sure, he’s got more confidence,” Erickson said. “He’s playing harder. He’s letting the game come to him a little more.”
The Trappers were without double-figure scorer and top rebounder Sukhjot Bains, who smashed his toe in a recent game and is limping.
“I’ll be back in another week,” Bains said.
The other Trapper big guy, Damon Leach, who is 6-11, also enjoyed the team’s height advantage over Rocky.
“We’re not going to see that very often,” said Leach, who scored 9 points in 13-plus minutes. “We were looking to get the ball in the post from the beginning.”
And it was a strategy that worked from the beginning.
(Lew Freedman can be reached at lew@codyenterprise.com.)