Olympia drops first league loss, 59-49, to Bellarmine Prep

Bellarmine Prep was the first big test for the Olympia High School boys basketball team.

And the Lions did enough Friday night at home to make sure the Bears didn’t pass.

After Christian Moore put the first points on the board just over a minute in, Bellarmine never lost sight of the lead, and handed Olympia its first Class 4A Narrows loss, 59-49.

“It was a low-scoring game,” Olympia forward Brett Thompson said. “We have a lot of things to work on offensively. Pretty poor showing on offense, that’s the main thing.”

Thompson did score a game-high 19 points, but Olympia shot 17 of 38 from the field, and put up only eight points in the third quarter as the Lions started to pull away.

Moore broke away early in the fourth quarter and slammed it home to extend Bellarmine’s lead to double-digits for the first time in the game.

From there, Olympia did not get within less than six.

“A test like today against a really good team and good physicality I think reveals some of the warts that you have, so we will go back and try to address those right away,” Olympia coach John Kiley said.

“We lacked, I thought, the courage from all five positions to effectively attack the rim. I felt like tonight we were very stagnant.”

Though there were flickers of offensive fluidity.

Hunter Sipe lobbed a pass to David Woodward who completed the alley-oop midway through the second quarter to bring the Bears within two.

And Thompson cut the lead to one with 5 minutes, 16 seconds remaining in the third on a 3-pointer from the corner, but that’s as close as Olympia got.

“I know they’re a very good team, they’re very well coached,” Bellarmine coach Bernie Salazar said. “I wasn’t surprised that it was a battle, not at all.”

Woodward, Sipe and Eddie Beusch each contributed seven points while Liam Murphy, who spent most of the game tending to Bellarmine sharp-shooter Malachi Flynn, added nine.

The Bears contained Flynn to four points in the first half, though he finished with a team-high 16.

“Malachi can score 30, so you don’t want that to happen,” Kiley said. “But, when you (focus on him), other people can hurt you, and I feel like other people did hurt us.”

Moore scored 15 for the Lions, while Joey Bodoia had 11.

“That’s the part we’re going to have to answer the bell about is being more physical,” Kiley said. “I felt like we did not rebound the way we need to, I felt like we did not attack the way we talk about. We have to be more assertive and aggressive.”

Olympia, down six, intentionally fouled Ahmad Lewis with 1:20 to play. The Lions hit six of 10 free throws in the final two minutes and shot 17 of 22 from the line in the game.

“You find a way to grind it out,” Salazar said.

Flynn put it away, netting two free throws with 14 seconds to play to extend Bellarmine’s lead back to 10. Two 3-point attempts from Olympia on the ensuing possession fell short as time expired.

Olympia (9-2, 4-1) travels to Timberline on Wednesday for its second of four consecutive games on the road.

This story was originally published January 8, 2016 at 10:18 PM with the headline "Olympia drops first league loss, 59-49, to Bellarmine Prep."