King’s boys finish fourth

YAKIMA — King’s encountered a bit of controversy as it wrapped up fourth place at last week’s Class 1A state championships.

Chris Faidley came within a 3-point basket of setting a state tournament record in the Knights’ 71-42 defeat of the Freeman Scotties March 8 at the Yakima SunDome.

The King’s junior point guard also came within a whisker of setting off a courtside melee between opposing head coaches, players and fans.

After making eight of 15 3-point attempts as part of a 42-point explosion, Faidley and King’s coach Marv Morris were advised that Faidley needed one more three to break the record.

At the time, the Knights were sitting on a 25-point lead with two minutes remaining. Morris had pulled Faidley from the game seconds earlier.

Morris returned Faidley to the court along with four substitutes.

At that point, Freeman coach Mike Thacker leapt from his courtside seat and ran to the scorer’s table, shouting at Morris about keeping Faidley in the game. The Freeman crowd joined the fray, yelling obscenities at the players and Morris.

“My players, co-workers and friends know that I do not run the score up on teams,” Morris said. “I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but to deny a kid a record would be unfair.”

When play resumed, the Knights took intentional fouls and timeouts to set-up plays and regain possession of the ball. But Faidley was unable to sink either of a pair of attempts for the record.

Players were warned by game officials after several flagrant fouls and the teams were directed off the floor in opposite directions after the awards ceremony.

Thacker refused to acknowledge Morris in the postgame ceremonies. After the game, an angry Thacker lambasted Morris.

“Never in 22 years of coaching have I seen anything like that,” he said. “I and the WIAA teach team sports. Something like that takes away from kids and puts the attention on one kid.”

When asked about the fact that his team’s defense had allowed the situation to develop over the course of the game — particularly when he put a 5-foot-7 player on the 6-1 Faidley, and that his offense was 13-for-54 from the field versus King’s 26-for-54 — Thacker replied, “I lost my best player in the opening game. We were already down by 25. This was the worst behavior I have seen.”

In his own defense, Morris pointed out the rarity of someone breaking a record like the one Faidley was approaching.

“When someone does what Chris almost did, I owe it to them, as a coach, to make a legitimate attempt to get it,” he said. “If I had put my starters out there, he would have gotten the record. But that would have been unfair.”

Minus a misstep against Napavine in the quarterfinals, the Knights might have been playing in the title game for a third straight year.

Napavine jumped out to a 15-8 first-quarter lead that the Knights were never able to overcome. They played the Tigers even the rest of the way, but that seven-point deficit served as the final margin, as the Knights fell 53-46.

Following the upsetting defeat, an unusually terse and agitated Morris escorted his players to the locker room after the game and kept the door closed to all visitors for 20 minutes.

Upon emerging, Morris didn’t want to comment on Faidley’s game-high 20 points or the nine points off three 3-pointer by senior guard Ben Pawlak, who played while sporting a cast on his left arm.

In a short statement, Morris said, “Was it a hard loss? Yes. Real hard.”

Prompted for more, he said, “There is a lot of disappointment tonight. We didn’t do some things as well as I thought we could. We were not as prepared as we should have been.”

The Knights opened the tournament in typical King’s fashion with a 51-35 win over River View March 5.

By the end of the first period, the Knights had a comfortable 18-5 lead, one that would reach 18 points near the end of the game. Faidley led all scorers with 24 points and Pawlak saw his first action since breaking his arm Feb. 4.

King’s started off slowly before pulling away from Zillah for a comfy 69-50 consolation victory March 7. Again, it was Faidley leading the way, scoring a game-high 22 points.

“It seems like we have battled all season with struggling one game and playing well the next,” Morris said. “Tonight we played the best tournament game this season.”

Faidley was the tournament’s leading scorer — averaging 27 points in four games — and was a lock for the all-tournament team. He shot 48 percent from the field, 37 percent from 3-point range and was 31-for-34 from the free throw line.