Facing a bigger school and a bigger team, the Cedarcrest Red Wolves boys’ basketball team used speed and teamwork to earn a close win, 69-67 over Mount Vernon during the holiday break, Wednesday, Dec. 8.

Mount Vernon’s line-up, all 6 feet or more in height, made some crucial shots to take an early lead in the game, and had 9 three-pointers for the night, but the Red Wolves worked hard to take away their scoring opportunities.

“One of our goals was to put pressure on the ball,” said Red Wolves coach Mark Prince. “We wanted to score more in transitions, and use our speed.”

They succeeded, with 12 steals overall, 6 of them by senior and captain Chris Dowd, and 2 blocked shots.

Against the strong shooting of Mount Vernon’s Shane Servoss, with 21 points, and Thor Vopnford, with 19, the Red Wolves put up key performances by junior Zach Taylor with 26 points, Dowd and Jordan Corpus with 10 each, and John Soule with 12.

“John was big for us,” said Prince, adding that he had eight rebounds for the night.

Taylor had 11 rebounds, in addition to his high score.

“I shot the ball well,” he said, “and my teammates just gave me the ball when I was in position.”

The Red Wolves went into halftime down 3 points, 32-35, but took the lead for the remainder of the game. The score at the end of the third quarter was  51-44, and Mount Vernon capitalized on turnovers and free throws in the last minutes of the game to narrow Cedarcrest’s 8-point lead to 2 before the clock ran out.

Prince said Mount Vernon was “a very good squad, very well-controlled,” and his team had to put in “a solid 32 minutes” against them.

Mount Vernon’s scoring percentage was only 46 percent to Cedarcrest’s well-distributed 71 percent.

Up next for the Red Wolves is a conference game against Kings, Tuesday, Jan. 3, followed by a home game against South Whidbey Thursday, Jan. 5. Their current record is 6-3.

Follow the Red Wolves boys at http://www.chsboysbasketball.webs.com/