Karson Maze drops 22 on opening night, Mead boys handle Wenatchee 72-51

Things went about as smoothly as possible for the Mead Panthers boys team in their season opener. Their best players played like it, everyone who suited up got meaningful minutes, and everyone stayed healthy.

And they came away with good vibes after a 20-point win.

Junior Karson Maze scored 22 points – 20 through the first three quarters – and the Panthers beat the visiting Wenatchee Panthers 71-51 in the nonleague season opener for both teams on Saturday.

Seniors Brady Thornton and Noah Kennedy-Gibbens joined Maze in double figures with 17 and 14 points, respectively. Trevelle Jones, a 6-foot-4 senior transfer from North Central, had eight points and five steals.

“It felt great. You know, loose ends,” Maze said. “We’re just trying to clean up things in our first game.”

“We got our first game in the books, and that was kind of one of the objectives. We graduated half our team from last year. We are trying to onboard a lot of new bodies,” Mead coach Luke Jordan said.

“It’s just hard to facilitate game tempo in practice, and we’ve tried to amp up the intensity quite a bit. So, I think this was an eye-opener. Some guys needed to see that this is what (varsity speed) looks like.”

The Panthers came within one win from reaching the State 4A tournament last season, losing 76-67 to Richland in the district second-place game following a 19-6 regular season in which they went 8-1 in league.

But five of the seven players who scored in that game have graduated.

“It still stings, not gonna lie,” Maze said.

“Karson is such a pest, and Trevelle has so much length and a high IQ to be able to play passing lanes well,” Jordan said. “It will be okay, but it’s going to take us a while to figure out who we are.”

Mead jumped out to a quick 7-2 lead, but Wenatchee chipped away and a late 3 by Thomas Mathison helped the visitors to a 15-14 lead after one.

Mead went on an 8-2 run in the second quarter, spurred by six points from Thornton, and led 26-19 with 3 minutes left in the half.

Maze took over on both halves of the court in the latter stages of the quarter. He had several steals leading to easy buckets and finished with eight points in the period. Mead led 34-21 at the intermission.

“We’re changing a lot of what we did from last year to this year offensively, but defense is one thing we can control all the time,” Jordan said. “That’s one thing we’ve talked about as a team is we have to push intensity on defense. We have to be disruptive in passing lanes. We have to be absolute pests on ball.”

“I try to tell everybody, like, if we want to get to that Tacoma Dome, then we’ve got to play defense,” Maze said.

Maze continued his torrid pace in the third quarter, and his 3-pointer from the wing with 3 minutes to go in the frame put Mead up 49-28. He had 10 in the period and the Panthers led by 20 entering the fourth.

With so many new players on varsity, Jordan is relying on the returners to instill a sense of what it means playing at Mead – even though the boys basketball program hasn’t won a district title since the days of Adam Morrison and Bryan Williams.

“We look around and every (Mead) program, seemingly, is having some sort of postseason success. So, these guys have wanted it for a long time.” Jordan said. “We look up at the banner and said, ‘Guys, the last time Mead won a district title was in ‘03.’ So, the guys are aware of it, and they’re hungry for it. Even though we’re onboarding a lot of guys, we still have postseason aspirations.”