GILBERT, Az. – The Washington Supreme players and coached boarded their Sunday evening Phoenix-to-Seattle flight with four End of Summer Showcase victories tucked securely in the overhead storage.
Coach Carl Howell’s club, after rolling past Vegas Elite (82-60), had to rally from a 19-point deficit at intermission and then needed a “sudden-victory” overtime to edge Gamepoint of San Diego, 57-55.
Reserve guard Jerry Hayes Jr. (South Hill, WA, Emerald Ridge) scored a layup for the win in an overtime period in which the first team to score picked up the victory at the Inspire Courts facility in this Phoenix suburb.
Gamepoint – which sent things into OT via a layup by 6-foot-9 Dillon Wilhite (Cathedral Catholic) with two seconds to go – controlled the center jump but Trevan Martin missed a layup attempt while appearing to be fouled.
After a defensive rebound, Hayes finished things at the other end.
As they were in victories over Arsenal (Northern California) and Firestorm (Phoenix) on Saturday and during the dominance of Vegas Elite, 6-8 Tyson Degenhart (Mead, WA, Mt. Spokane), 6-11 Jackson Grant (Olympia) and 6-4 John Christofilis (Seattle O’Dea) were outstanding during the second half against a Gamepoint team that was just short of perfection over the first 16 minutes.
Degenhart (pictured), who is committed to Boise State and was my unofficial “Most Outstanding Player” for the two-day event, scored 25 points against Vegas Elite.
Grant (committed to the University of Washington) added 14 points and four blocked shots while Christofilis (who had 15 3s over the weekend) scored 21.
Heavily recruited forward Arthur Kaluma (who plays for Dream City Christian in Glendale, AZ) scored 23 points for Vegas Elite in its loss to Washington Supreme.
Other teams going unbeaten in the 36-team event included The Show (Phoenix), Team Grrr! (Northern California) and Team Buildup (Oxnard).
Malik Thomas, who is committed to USC and is a senior at Damien in La Verne, is a member of the Compton Magic program.
But he was a standout for Team Buildup over the weekend.
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