Besides taking over for coach Jim Berndt, West Valley assistant coach Jon Kinloch has the tough task of determining what players and what combinations should play each game.

Well, coach, on Monday, Jared Robinson made his request for more playing time in the future known.

West Valley's Tim Wagar (40) tries to get around Mark Morris' Felix Friedt in the first half Monday. Wagar finished with 13 points.   BRIAN FITZGERALD/Yakima Herald-Republic   View all photos for this story.

Finishing 5-for-5 from 3-point range to tie a Tourneytown.com Shootout record, Robinson finished with a team-high 17 points as the Rams defeated Mark Morris 58-49 in the SunDome. His West Valley teammates added two more 3-pointers as the team finished a scorching 7 of 10 from beyond the arc to set a record for most 3-pointers made by a team at the Shootout. The 2004 Riverside Christian boys team held the previous best with 6.

“We have a lot of guys who can go in and then kick the ball out,” said Robinson, who is only a sophomore. “When we’re feeling the (3-pointers), everyone contributes.”

Robinson provided four 3-pointers in the first half as West Valley jumped out to a 19-14 lead at the end of the first quarter and never trailed from there. Mark Morris (9-5 overall) did have chances to get back into the game, though. Three Ram starters — Tim Wagar, Jordan Juarez and Evan Berndt — battled foul trouble, picking up three each before halftime.

Those foul concerns got worse when Juarez picked up his fourth late in the third quarter, but by then it didn’t matter too much. West Valley used a 6-0 run — capped by Robinson’s final 3-pointer — to start the third frame and build a 45-33 lead going into the fourth.

The Monarchs responded by finally turning to their size advantage inside to start the fourth with an 8-0 run to pull within four with a little more than six minutes remaining. The 6-foot-6 Kevin Wright scored eight of his team-high 16 points for Mark Morris in the final quarter; 6-7 teammate Felix Friedt managed only seven on the night before fouling out with 5:11 remaining.

So even though Wagar is West Valley’s tallest player at 6-3, the Monarchs couldn’t find a way to take advantage of their size and use it for plenty of easy points to match the Rams’ hot outside shooting. Mark Morris barely even won the rebounding battle 21-18.

“I think a lot was their perimeter (struggling to get the ball inside),” said Wagar, who finished with 13 points and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. “Phil Jennings did a great job on (Wright), which was the guy they started to go to more at the end.

“He got a couple steals (four) and forced the guy to take bad shots.”

West Valley hit enough free throws — 9 of 12 in the fourth frame — to keep the Monarchs, who finished a respectable 17 of 38 from the field but went 0 of 6 from 3-point range for the game, from getting back into the contest. Matt Argyropoulos was the only other Mark Morris player in double figures with 15.

The win closes out a four-game stretch where Kinloch filled in for Berndt, who is finishing a suspension for violating the school district’s policy for alcohol use by coaches. Kinloch went 3-1 during the suspension, and the win Monday improves West Valley’s overall record to 5-8.

“We’ve got a young team here that — to be honest with you — they are disappointed and we’re disappointed with our start because we all see a lot of potential,” Kinloch said. “We just have to remember that we’re young and we need to try a lot of different combinations and let a lot of guys play (to find out our rotations).”