The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

If they gave out points for hustle and hard work Dayton-Waitsburg would have won by a blowout Saturday night. Instead, the Dayton-Watisburg team dropped their first league contest of the year 56-46 to visiting Kittitas.

Due to the fact that D-W was struggling with illness all week, they knew coming into the contest that they would have to outwork the other team because of an incomplete varsity roster.

“I think that because we had those illnesses, we had to out hustle them because we didn’t have the depth we normally have,” Junior 6’1” forward Mason Finney, who finished with 10 points, said.

Due to illness, Senior 6’3” forward Braden Kitselman didn’t even dress for the game, and Sophomore 5’10” shooting guard Dylan Bledsoe only put on a uniform and sat on the bench in case he was needed as a last resort.

Dayton-Waitsburg’s one lead came in the opening minute with an electrifying 3-point shot by Junior forward Shawn Evans. His shot was followed by Senior forward Tayven Seney’s 3-point play in which he rebounded a Finney miss and was fouled on the put back bucket. At that point D-W trailed by one, 7-6.

Seney, who finished with a team-high 12 points, put up four more points on shots in the paint near the basket to keep it close 12-10. At that point, the Kittitas Coyotes went on a 10-0 run to go up 22-10. From that point Kittitas never really pulled away as D-W outscored the visitor in the second half 27-23, but Dayton-Waitsburg couldn’t close the gap either.

Sophomore guard Blake Caitlin led Kittitas with 20 points, and Senior guard Justin Hudson added 13. Seney’s strong defense under the basket kept Coyote’s 6’4” giant Cody Van Dorn to nine points.

Dayton-Waitsburg (1-5, 0-1) will next travel to the Mac-Hi holiday tournament in Milton-Freewater, OR, Friday and Saturday. Friday, the boys play at 1:30 p.m., and on Saturday they play at noon.

Friday’s league game against Liberty Christian will be made up at a later date in Waitsburg.

Kittitas 22 11 11 12 56

D-W 12 7 13 14 46

Kittitas (56): Caitlin 20, Hudson 13, Van Dorn 9, Rosbach 3, Byers 3, Bryant 3, Walters 3. 3-pts: 6-19, Hudson, Rosbach, Byers, Bryant, Caitlin 2. Fouls: 18. Turnovers: 13. Free Throws: 12-20

Dayton-Waitsburg (46): Seney 12, Finney 10, VanBlaricom 7, Evans 5, White 5, Pettichord 4, House 2, Castello 1. 3-pts: 3-9, VanBlaricom, Evans, Pettichord. Fouls: 15. Turnovers: 16. Free Throws: 11-20.