Edmonds-Woodway boys fall short in hard-fought 3A state championship
Published 8:00 pm Saturday, March 8, 2025
TACOMA — Walking off the court one last time, Cam Hiatt could not hold the tears back. William Alseth, sitting beside him, wrapped his arm around him. DJ Karl stood at the end of the bench, staring at the court, as Grant Williams had his head in his hands at the front end.
It was over.
A magical, program-shifting season for Edmonds-Woodway boys basketball fell one win short of a state championship. The No. 5 seed Warriors (26-3) lost 68-48 to the top-seeded Rainier Beach Vikings (25-2) in the Boys 3A State Championship at the Tacoma Dome on Saturday.
Final: RB wins 68-48
The magical season ends in defeat for Edmonds-Woodway, which was simply out-gunned by Rainier Beach.
A lot of emotion on the bench, as expected, for the Warriors.@HeraldNetPreps
— Joe Pohoryles (@Joe_Poho) March 9, 2025
The tears turned to a stoic look of pride, as Hiatt (15 points, 12 rebounds) held the second-place trophy in front of the Edmonds-Woodway section, packed to the brim long after the final buzzer and even longer after the game became out of reach. The tears came back as the Warriors walked off the court one last time. The pain of falling short and the pride towards what they had accomplished played tug-of-war in their heads.
“The first thing that’s running through my head is, that’s the last time I’m ever going to put on a high school jersey,” Hiatt said. “But I am extremely proud. I don’t think ‘proud’ can encapsulate the emotions that I’m feeling right now (about) this team, this community. The way we showed up was incredible.”
It was a tale of two programs.
The Vikings boast the top two Class of 2025 recruits from the state of Washington, according to the 247Sports recruiting database. Jaylen Petty scored a game-high 26 points. The New Mexico commit is the 118th-ranked recruit in the nation. Saturday marked Rainier Beach’s 10th state championship, and first since 2016.
The Warriors, meanwhile, have never advanced as far as they did in this year’s tournament. It’s rare for any Wesco team to get this far. The arrival of Hiatt — back home from Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio — as well as coach Tyler Geving completely changed the outlook of Edmonds-Woodway basketball.
As the starters exited the game with 1:29 left, Rainier Beach leading 66-48, Geving pulled Hiatt into a long embrace, hanging onto what little was left of their dream season.
“That was a hard one,” Geving said, choking up. “I knew I’d break down when I saw him coming off the court, because he’s such a good kid. A winner. What he’s done for our program, not only him but just all the kids. I mean, I look across the way today, with our fans, I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Edmonds-Woodway was outmatched from the beginning, but it managed to keep up during the first half. The Vikings rolled out to a 15-5 lead in the first quarter, taking advantage of Warrior miscues and finding openings in the left corner or by cutting to the rim, but back-to-back 3s from Julian Gray (8 points) and Alseth (13 points, 5 rebounds) made it 17-11 after the first.
The Warriors started hitting shots to keep the deficit within two or three points, but a late run from Rainier Beach put it up to 32-25 at half. Both sides were shooting 50 percent from the field, but Edmonds-Woodway made 4-of-6 (66.7%) 3-pointers, a rate they would need to keep up to have a chance in the second half.
“Just stick with it and be confident,” Hiatt said as the message going into the second half. “We’ve had some really good second halves this tournament, and it’s been really big for us, the second half, and playing defense.”
However, a swarming Vikings defense proved too much for the Warriors to handle. Geving said he likes to stay under 10 turnovers in a game; Edmonds-Woodway had 10 by halftime, and finished with 19. Rainier Beach scored 28 points off turnovers, while the Warriors scored just four points on the four turnovers they created all game.
“Sometimes you run into a really good team like Rainier Beach, and they got a lot of talent and heart, at the end of the day,” Hiatt said. “But you do all you can, and you try your very best. They hit some shots and big ones in some timely moments, and they ended up coming out on top.”
Trailing by 10 with just over a minute left in the third, the Warriors sent the ball to Williams (7 points) around half-court. The sophomore was immediately bombarded by a Vikings trap, which forced him to throw the ball back toward Karl (5 points, 4 assists).
Rainier Beach junior Marques Ili-Meneese (11 points) collected the errant pass, gathered the ball and flushed it home with a dunk. Geving threw his marker to the court in frustration. Petty rattled in a 3 after another Warriors turnover with 35 seconds left in the third to extend the lead to 15.
“Give them (Rainier Beach) credit, it’s hard to simulate that in practice,” Geving said. “The turnovers just kill you. … We struggled with their pressure a little bit today, but I’m proud of the kids. I think we competed. We gave them everything (we) had. We were right there at the half, and even going into the fourth, it was a close game.”
As the second half drew on, Edmonds-Woodway had a hard time finding good looks and started to rely on getting to the foul line, but Rainier Beach continued to capitalize on turnovers and stretched the lead despite inefficient shooting from 3 (7-for-23, 30.4%). The Warriors did not stop fighting, but the Vikings were too good to overcome.
The immediate sting made it hard for Edmonds-Woodway to reflect on the season it had, but it did not darken the optimism towards next season. Hiatt will move on to play at Dartmouth College, but the Warriors bring back the other four starters: Williams, Alseth, Karl and Gray, as well as sixth-man Dre Simonsen.
After getting a taste of a deep state tournament run, Geving wants that to become the norm for the Warriors.
“It reminds them how hard you have to work to get here,” Geving said. “We always talked about earning everything that you get. Nobody’s going to give you anything, you have to go earn it. And we talked about, ‘You earned it to be in this game today,’ so we just got to keep working hard.”
