White River defeats Enumclaw in local boys basketball rivalry

In a non-league high school boys basketball rivalry between two Plateau squads, Enumclaw and White River played in Buckley last night, it was the Pierce County Hornets who prevailed, winning 67-58

In a basketball battle between Enumclaw and Buckley, two teams from opposite sides of the White River squared off for local bragging rights and it was the Buckley boys who won 67-58.White River’s vaunted guard trio of Billy Kiel, Jason Tyler and Alex Sayler combined for a total of 51 points.While at the end of the first stanza of this roundball rivalry, the score was knotted at 15 apiece, Kiel was the driving force in the contest as he spearheaded the relentless offensive thrust, going 10-for-18 from the floor (4-of-6 from beyond the arch) to notch 26 points for the second time in as many games for White River, which is an unbeaten 2-0 after also toppling a highly touted Tumwater team earlier in the week, 76-71.”Enumclaw is one of the hardest working teams I’ve ever seen,” exclaimed Kiel, dripping with sweat after White River had prevailed over its local nemesis. “So in order to beat EHS we had to at least match its intensity and that wasn’t easy, because their guys were bigger than us. I think in the long run we were patient in sticking with our game plan and we used our experience to pull off the win.”Enumclaw’s first year cage coach, Kellen Hall, attested to the fact that even though his contingent possessed more actual height, if one counted all of the offensive caroms that the Pierce County Hornets (WRHS) were accruing, that EHS was actually getting out rebounded 2-to-1. “White River would work its way into position to take a shot and if they missed, there were a couple times when they would get four or five more tries at it on that same possession….and shooters…After Kiel knocked down those first couple, I knew we were in for a long night,” said Hall, whose young crew fell to 0-2 with last week’s 46-34 setback to Sumner High and Friday’s loss to White River.