VANCOUVER, Wash. — Spending part of the latter portion of their winter break in Vancouver, the Moses Lake Mavericks boys basketball team competed at the Clark County Holiday Tournament hosted at Fort Vancouver High School.

The Mavs finished 1-2 at the tournament, defeating Heritage High School from Vancouver 72-43 and losing 64-52 to Spanaway Lake of Spanaway and 67-59 to Liberty High School of Hillsboro, Oregon.

“For all of us, this is actually a brand new experience since I took over as head coach four years ago,” Moses Lake Head Coach Jake Hunt said. “The guys hadn’t done anything together as far as team bonding for an extended period of time. It was a pretty unique experience for most of the guys.”

The trip allowed Moses Lake players to focus solely on basketball with school off for the break, Hunt said.

“I think that was a pretty big deal where they were able to just get away from all those pieces and just hang out, be young men and be basketball players for a while,” he said. “That was super special to see there.”

With games being played in Vancouver, the Mavs stayed at a hotel in nearby Portland, Oregon, where players got to spend time with one another off the court.

“Off the court, just eating together, staying in the hotel together, riding in the rig for six hours together – I think that definitely can bring guys together and help build that chemistry as a team, and have that focus on what we can do.”

Along with going to restaurants as a team, the Mavericks traveled to Hillsboro, to race at K1 Speed, an indoor go-kart venue.

“We were able to get a couple of races out with the guys, they had a blast doing that,” Hunt said. “That was something you can’t do in Moses Lake, something you can’t do in a whole lot of places. That was super special to get the guys together and do stuff besides just focusing on basketball.”

One of the positives of playing in-season tournaments is that they allow teams to get used to playing back-to-back-to-back games, which is something that teams will have to do if they make it to state.

“I told the guys going in, ‘You’re preparing like this is playing at the Tacoma Dome,’” Hunt said. “‘You’re thinking that this is how a state schedule would be’… It’s really good for your guys that they have to be able to move on and get prepared for different styles of basketball and different types of defense and offensive plays.”

Hunt noted senior Blaine Macdonald, junior Kyson Thomas and freshman Brady Jay as players who had stood out in Vancouver, with Jay carving himself out a role during the tournament.

“(Jay) really started to find some confidence as a player for us,” Hunt said. “He got some significant playing time, so he definitely stood out, backing up Kyson Thomas at point guard and playing some shooting guard for us. (I) was really happy with his growth in just the three games, he started to turn it up a notch.”

Hunt said that one of the significant takeaways from the Clark County Holiday Invitational was Moses Lake’s free throw shooting.

“We were shooting so poorly from the free throw line, and we’ve got to figure out how to shoot with confidence and finish plays,” Hunt said.

The Mavs return to the court Tuesday night on the road against Davis. Tip-off is at 7:30 p.m.

Ian Bivona can be reached via email at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.