By Jacob Archer

Thurston beat Crater 63-43 on Friday, led by a game-high 17 points from senior point guard Isaac Lange.

The Colts (13-4, 6-3) ended the game with four players scoring in double figures.

For Crater, their offense was much harder to come by, with 2021 5-star prospect Nathan Bittle leading the team with 17 points. The only other player who scored in double digits for Crater (11-6, 5-3) was junior guard Jayden Vranes, who finished with 10 points.

Thurston coach Blaine Liberatore was pleased with how his team played as a unit.

“We were in attack mode in all three phases of the game,” said Liberatore. “We wanted to attack offensively and defensively and in transition. I think the main difference was just staying in attack mode for 32 minutes offensively. Defensively we knew we were going to give up some looks, but we wanted to make Bittle and Vranes work for everything they got.”

Coach Liberatore also mentioned that he was looking forward to his players getting healthy, as they’ve been dealing with injuries all year. He said they need to still find out their identity as a team. “We just need to continue to figure out our identity defensively, and hammer home that attack mode” They’ll have a chance to do that as they take on No. 1 Churchill (14-3, 9-0) Tuesday.

Crater struggled offensively to get any rhythm going offensively. “I think we have to share the ball more, a lot of us try to do our 1-on-1 stuff before we get our team involved,” said Bittle.

Bittle currently holds offers from Oregon, UCLA, Arizona and others. “The process has been good, it’s been cool being able to talk to college coaches and hearing their experiences. I ask them what I can improve on and how to be a better teammate. And they all tell me to just keep working hard and getting in the gym and working hard.”

Listen to the game here: