Tehachapi News

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The Warriors came away from their summer campaign with an overall better understanding of personnel and the capabilities of each player for the upcoming winter season.
Tehachapi played a pair of scrimmages the past two weeks against Desert High School, the defending Southern Section V-A champions. While the Warriors came up on the short end of the scoreboard on both occasions, the rotation of players overall gave the team a more clear picture of the talent base.
“We have some things we need to work on, there’s no doubt about it,” said head coach Chris Olofson. “We like our perimeter shooting this year and we have some talent and size to feed the ball inside to, but putting it all together will be the key for us. Getting everyone involved and everyone feeding off each other.”
Bert Hall and Justin Hansen split time at center for Tehachapi in both scrimmages against Desert, 45-40 and 51-37 victories in favor of the Scorpions. Hall had seven points and eight rebounds in the first game, but was not available for the latter contest due to a commitment in a NIKE sponsored tournament. Hansen, who was not available in the first game, was able to enter in the second contest to account for seven points, seven rebounds, and two assists without his tower counterpart.
“Getting everyone together during the summer can be difficult, it’s a time for families to go on vacation together and kids to play in county and regional leagues,” added Olofson. “When we have everyone together this upcoming season things should start to fall into place.”
Other significant contributors in the second Desert game included Kurtis Knudson with nine points and three rebounds, JJ Balkar with eight points and four boards and Matt Bloom with six points and two steals. Jason Kearns also had a nice three point bucket in second half action.
Junior Varsity
The Braves played their best all-around game in the final scrimmage of the summer season, taking a 37-28 victory over Desert.
Nick Phillips finished with eight points and three rebounds to lead Tehachapi, while Macon Stott had eight points and Kash Knudson had six points, four rebounds, three steals and two assists.
Other highlights included Nick Buttcane with six points and five rebounds, Journey McDowell with a bucket and three rebounds, and Cameron Ingersoll and Michael Lowder both connecting on three point baskets.
In previous scrimmage action, the Braves took a trip to Palmdale to square-off against Paraclete, Stockdale, Lancaster, and Littlerock, scoring 103 points overall.
“Too many turnovers cost us in some of our games,” said head coach Bruce Schkade. “That being said though I was pleased with the effort and how the kids never gave up.”
Scoring leaders had Nick Phillips with 31 points, followed by Dallas Scaggs with 26 points, Kash Knudson with 13 points, Levi Garrett with nine points and Nick Buttcane with five points during the tournament stretch.
“I'm looking forward to the upcoming basketball season. I feel we have the talent,” added Schkade. “We were just one win short of winning it as freshmen last year. Running a summer program helps to develop the talent and hopefully that will get us over the hump.”