TACOMA — Glacier Peak had no answer for Andre Winston Jr.
A bandage under his right eye and a missing contact lens still wasn’t enough to handcuff the senior guard as he sprinted to a game-high 36 points and the Lakes Lancers handed the Glacier Peak boys basketball team its first loss in the 3A state tournament at the Tacoma Dome.
Glacier Peak failed to keep pace with Winston Jr., a James Madison University recruit, and a Lakes squad that played at warp speed for 32 minutes in a 74-61 quarterfinal round loss Thursday night.
Winston Jr., who was cut under the right eye and lost his contact lens following an elbow to the face in the first quarter, shot 13-for-21 and added five rebounds as Lakes maintained a double-digit lead for much of the contest.
“We have a lot of speed and it’s constant,” Lakes fourth-year head coach JoJo Rodriguez said. “When you get out there with that constant speed over and over and over, and you’re not used to playing against that speed, it makes you rush and I thought we rushed them (Glacier Peak) a little bit … they looked uncomfortable with the speed that we were going.”
Senior guard Brandon Hill, one of four two-year starters for the Grizzlies, provided much of the impetus for Glacier Peak with 13 points and five rebounds, but the Grizzlies (20-6 overall) couldn’t get their long-range game started.
Glacier Peak shot 2-for-17 from behind the 3-point line and committed 21 turnovers while Lakes grabbed a 20-point lead with 5 minutes, 6 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
“I don’t think we were mentally ready to play at the level they were at,” Glacier Peak head coach Brian Hunter said. “We just weren’t prepared to match their level of intensity to start the game.
“I felt like every time we would score or do something, they would counter right back.”
Along with Hill’s 13 points, 6-foot-3 junior forward Tanner Southard scored a team-high 14 points on 5-for-9 shooting before fouling out with 2:29 remaining in the game.
Jack Bonner, a 6-3 junior, added 11 points and 6-foot-11 post Payton Pervier had a team-high six rebounds and five blocked shots.
Glacier Peak shot a respectable 23 of 51 from the field (45.1 percent), but Lakes’ active defense pushed the Grizzlies into 13 first-half turnovers and a 15-point deficit at the half.
“When you’re that strong, that big, that athletic — those things combine to make for an imposing defense, and that’s what they have,” Hunter said of the Lancers.
“I think that’s one of our strong points,” Winston Jr. said. “We hustle and we can pretty much run all day and then we’ve got a lot of players, we can go to the bench, we’re just defensive at all times.”
Andre wasn’t the only Winston putting the ball in the hoop for the Lancers (22-4), a 2008 state runner-up.
Younger brother Isaac Winston, a 6-2 junior, chipped in 14 points and seven rebounds and the brothers combined to score 24 of 36 first-half points for the Lancers.
“That’s family, man,” Rodriguez said of the brothers’ connection on the court. “They just know where each other are. They just know where each other are gonna be on the court at all times. It’s your brother, you know where your brother’s gonna be and it’s a bond that’s been working for them.”
The Grizzlies return to the court today for a 2 p.m. loser-out match-up against Rainier Beach. If Glacier Peak wins, it will play for the first trophy in program history Saturday in the fourth/seventh place game.
“It’ll probably take us a little while to get this taste out of our mouth a little bit,” Hunter said of the loss, “but we came down here to get better all the time and I think playing on Saturday and taking home a trophy for us as a second-year school would be a tremendous accomplishment.”
At Tacoma Dome
Glacier Peak11101525—61
Lakes16201622—74
Glacier Peak — Persha 4, Hill 13, Southard 14, Cummins 8, Manning 5, Harrison 0, Harris 0, Pederson 0, Kiser 6, Bonner 11, Forkey 0, Pervier 0. Lakes — Holloway 2, McAllister 6, Martinez 8, Kearse 6, Winston Jr. 36, Dozier 0, Winston 14, Banner 2. 3-pointers — Cummins 1, Bonner 1, Martinez 1, Winston Jr. 1, Winston 2. Records — Glacier Peak 20-6 overall. Lakes 22-4.
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