8th place at state OK with Lake Stevens boys

Published 10:24 pm Saturday, March 7, 2009

TACOMA — For T.J. Dodge, the sting of the state tournament’s longest game lasted only a few minutes.

As the Lake Stevens High School senior walked off the floor at the Tacoma Dome while holding his team’s eighth-place trophy from the 4A boys basketball tournament Saturday afternoon, he felt the pain of a heart-wrenching, double-overtime loss to Redmond morph into pride.

“Right now, I’m just really excited whenever I look at it,” Dodge said of the trophy, which the Vikings earned after a 70-64, double-overtime loss in the fifth-place game. “No one thought we’d get this far — no one.

“Just walking (from the court) with that trophy made me realize: we’re the eighth-best team in the state.”

It was Lake Stevens’ first state trophy since 1982 and its first ever in Class 4A.

But, oh, how close fifth place was.

During a back-and-forth marathon, the Vikings rallied to force overtime, appeared to have the game in hand four minutes later, then lost their composure down the stretch.

After star player Sean Stickney was called for his fifth foul with Lake Stevens trailing by one point with 35.6 seconds to go in the second overtime, he challenged an official and was quickly assessed a technical foul. Redmond hit three of the four resulting free throws, effectively putting the game away.

“For all the things that happened in that game,” Lake Stevens coach Mark Hein said afterward, “that was a funny time (for the official) to make that (technical) call.”

Stickney, who had a team-high 27 points and 10 rebounds to record his third double-double in as many days, said his final act at the state tournament would not mar the experience.

“It could tarnish it, but I’m not going to let it,” said Stickney, who averaged 25.0 points and 12.0 rebounds in the Vikings’ four games of the tournament. “I still had a great time here.”

And the Vikings weren’t going to let the loss tarnish their experience, either.

Even in defeat, Lake Stevens proved its mettle while going toe-to-toe with a scrappy team and one of the hottest players of any tournament game. Redmond’s Chris Harrington scored 34 points Saturday, a 2009 tournament high, but could not put the Vikings away until the end of the second overtime.

While Harrington basically carried the Mustangs (17-10) on his back, Lake Stevens stuck around because of several heroes.

After falling behind by six points with 1½ minutes to go in regulation, the Vikings (22-6) rallied behind late 3-pointers from Dodge and Shane Kaska.

Stickney, who had made a pair of free throws with 1.5 seconds to go to win a game the previous day, hit two more clutch free throws to tie the score with 48 seconds remaining in regulation Saturday. Redmond’s Harrington missed a shot at the buzzer, sending the game to overtime.

“We couldn’t just roll over and die,” Lake Stevens senior Ryan Legg said of the six-point deficit the Vikings faced late in regulation after the score had been within three points for almost the entire afternoon. “We had to persevere.”

After Stickney scored five of his team’s first seven points of overtime, another hero came to the rescue in the waning seconds. Junior point guard Mike Schneider, who had made just one field goal all tournament, drove for a short pull-up shot in the lane to give Lake Stevens a 62-60 lead with five seconds to play in the first OT.

“I’ve been working on my penetration all year,” Schneider said, “and slowly I’ve been getting better and better.”

Redmond’s chance to send the game into a second overtime appeared to dissipate when Legg stripped Harrington of the ball at the other end just before the buzzer went off. But a late whistle gave Harrington a chance to shoot his team into another extra session.

“He held the ball out and I just put my hand on it and held it there,” Legg said, disputing the call. “I can understand why it might have looked like a foul, but it wasn’t. And I’m not one to lie about stuff like that.”

Harrington, who said after the game that it was the correct call, calmly hit two free throws while the other nine players watched at midcourt, tying the score at 62 and sending it into a second OT.

“I didn’t want to let my senior year end like that, alone on the line,” Harrington said.

The Vikings’ only points of the second overtime came on a pair of Stickney free throws. Playing without Kaska, who fouled out early in the first overtime after carrying the team for most of the second half of regulation, Lake Stevens missed all six field-goal attempts over the final four-minute session.

Redmond held a 65-64 lead and pushed the ball inside before Stickney got whistled for his fifth foul with 35.6 seconds remaining. Stickney, who had thrown up his arms after questionable calls all afternoon, immediately went over to one official to argue the call.

The official called a technical, giving the Mustangs two extra free throws and possession of the ball.

“I just asked him where I hit (the Redmond player), and he T’d me up,” Stickney said afterward.

While he showed no visible sign of frustration after the game, Stickney was certainly disappointed with the outcome.

“We came in here and played more talented teams and beat them,” he said. “It’s really disappointing because we felt like (Redmond) was one of the weaker teams we’ve played.”

Entering the tournament, many people thought the Vikings had the weakest team in the tournament. One of Seattle’s newspapers ranked the tournament field earlier this week and Lake Stevens was 16th out of 16.

“To tell you the truth, I liked the 16th seed,” Stickney said. “It’s nice to be the underdogs. I’d rather be expected to lose and win than the other way around: to be expected to win and lose.”

The Vikings, despite Saturday’s loss, certainly showed they belonged.

“Of course we’re disappointed, yet we’re extremely proud,” Legg said. “We were picked third in our conference and 16th at state. We were the complete underdog. We basically came in said to Washington: ‘Here’s what we can do.’”

At the Tacoma Dome

Redmond917101798—70

Lake Stevens1311131692—64

Redmond—Ellis 7, Leland 7, Harrington 34, Gonia 4, Squires 0, Ju. Alexander 13, Tufa 3, Wisman 2, Ja. Alexander 0. Lake Stevens—Legg 6, Isaksen 0, Finley 0, Schneider 5, T.Dodge 8, Maw 3, J.Dodge 0, Kaska 15, Stickney 27. 3-point goals—TJ Doge 2, Maw 1, Kaska 1, Stickney 1, Ellis 1, Leland 2, Harrington 2, Ju. Alexander 2, Tufa 1. Records—Lake Stevens 22-6 overall. Redmond 19-10.