Area Sports by Michael Dashiell

The 'old' guys still have it.

Led by the 14 points of Art Green (class of 1991), the Sequim Alumni Team II gave the graduates a split of games against Sequim High School's varsity squad Saturday night.

The nightcap to the 10th Welcome Back Wolfpack basketball jamboree, Sequim's combined varsity/junior varsity players took on a pair of squads from the past, including "Wolf" graduates from the late 1980s up to the 2007 squad.

After a pair of six-minute, split-squad exhibitions pitting half the high school team against the other half, the Wolves took on - and took down - a team of graduates from 2004-2007. Senior Ary Webb had a team-high nine points while younger brother Corbin had four points and three assists and Jeremie Oliver scored six points.

Leading the Alumni Team I with nine points was Ben Webb, Ary and Corbin's older brother and class of 2006 graduate.

"Pretty special; it's a memory for sure," Ben Webb said after the 10-minute game. A student at Central Washington University, Ben still keeps track on how brother Ary is doing, talking to him after every game. Now, he has double duty as Corbin starts high school varsity ball as a starting freshman.

"He's been working so hard in the off-season; I didn't expect any less," Ben Webb said.

The first game saw another brother combo as Anthony Meier (class of 2007) took on sophomore brother Kenny Meier.

The newer Wolves showed some clean passing against the veterans, collecting nine assists to their 11 baskets. Chris Mobley, class of 2004, and Evan Still, class of 2005 and a Sequim High coach, had three points each. Other Alumni Team I players included Ryan Rutherford (class of 2005) and Dan Lauritzen (class of 2007).

In the final contest, the newer Wolves were no match for the more experienced Alumni Team II, falling 29-15.

Green, an assistant to the Sequim High team, showed no mercy. After Ary Webb scored to open the game, Green drilled three three-pointers in the opening minute-and-a-half to stake the veterans to a 9-2 lead, an advantage they never relinquished.

"(I like the jamboree) because it keeps the Sequim basketball tradition together," Green said. "That old era ... it blends with the new."

Ben Shamp (class of 1997) added seven points while Brandon Funston (1988), Derrin Doty (1989), Rob Wright (1990) and Brady Marunde (2004) had two points apiece.

Brandon Funston, whose graduation year (1988) predates any player on the Sequim High varsity roster, scored two points and assisted on three baskets. He said he's only missed two or three of the jamborees since its inception in 1999.

"Once you get on the floor with guys you used to play with, it's fun," said Funston, now a Poulsbo resident. "There's something about coming back to a gym where we had so much success."

Like a number of the alumni players, Funston took part in alumni mini games in the afternoon at the Rick Kaps Memorial Gymnasium, reuniting with old teammates, meeting some of the newer alumni players and working up a sweat.

"It's a grind," Funston said. "I think, 'There's no way I can go again tonight.' But we can't let (the new guys) win. I like to go all out - I figure I've got 10 minutes. I can give it all out there."

Sequim High assistant Larry Hill, who was Sequim's head coach for several of the alumni players, took charge of the varsity squad with head coach Greg Glasser out of town. Hill said he was encouraged by some things the varsity squad did and also saw plenty of areas in which the Wolves need to improve.

"I thought we played well against an athletic team," Hill said. "There are a lot of things fundamentally we have to get better at. The thing I like about this team is that they share the ball (but) we have to find a couple of more scorers."

The Wolves open the regular season Dec. 5 in Silverdale against Klahowya.