YAKIMA
It didn’t turn out the way the King’s Knights had hoped.
A 54-46 quarterfinal loss to Meridian, the tournament’s Cinderella, put King’s in the consolation bracket against a Bellevue Christian team with something to prove.
The two-time defending champs, who were coming off a 59-51 loss to eventual champion Brewster, beat King’s 79-38, the Knights’ second-worst loss in coach Marv Morris’ seven years.
The Vikings’ Jeffrey Downs scored 40 points and became the 1A tournament’s all-time scoring leader, as King’s season and hopes of a trophy ended.
Downs, who led Bellevue Christian to third-place, finished with a career total of 335 that shattered the record of 282 held by King’s Chris Faidley, who graduated in 2004.
Faidley sent a text message congratulating Downs to King’s trainer Daunte Gouge, who showed the message to Downs while he was being interviewed after the game. Downs said when Faidley was a senior and he was a freshman, Faidley told him he thought Downs could break his record if he made it to state all four years.
“We’ve been playing against King’s forever,” Downs said, recalling when the two teams played in the Chinook League. “It’s fun to do it against a rival.”
Bellevue Christian never trailed in the game as Downs scored 28 points in the first half. The scoring record fell midway through the second quarter on one of Downs’ eight 3-pointers.
“We wanted to prove something,” Downs said. “We consider ourselves one of the best teams in 1A.”
Senior guard Bryan Ayers led King’s with 12 points. Ayers and sophomore guard Alex Mar, who normally come off the bench, started against Bellevue Christian because of the energy they supplied during a King’s run in the second half against Meridian, Morris said.
However, the Knights (22-5) never got going offensively, shooting 28.3 percent for the game. Bellevue Christian, meanwhile, shot a torrid 60.9 percent for the game, led by Downs who made 13 of 19 shots.
The loss of center Charlie Enquist, who broke his shooting wrist during the bi-district playoffs, showed in the Knights two losses at state. Enquist’s replacement, Dylan O’Neil, contracted a bad cold right before the tournament and was on medication during it. He struggled from the field and couldn’t regain the form he had during the bi-district tournament.
“In each game he was really suffering as we went along in state … You can’t take over a spot like that unless you’re healthy,” Morris said. “As a team we do not have an outside game without an inside game. At the end we didn’t have any game that would produce any success for us.”
In the King’s locker room after the game, the coaches shared thoughts about the players and thanked them for what they gave this season, even though they fell short of their goal.
The Knights’ six seniors, Spencer Clark, Austin Bowlin, Trey Wright, Greg Uhrich, Biniam Tadele and Enquist all spoke and then the floor was turned over to the underclassmen.
At the beginning of the season much of the talk within basketball circles, Web sites and the press, even within the team itself, centered on King’s and how much talent they had, that they had unlimited potential. The Knights started out the season ranked No. 1 in the polls, but with five new players they struggled at times to pick up Morris’ defensive sets and find a rhythm. Junior guard Cameron George told his teammates next year they had to tune out that type of talk and work as hard as they can in the offseason to get better.
“I think it was hype,” Tadele said. “We looked at how much talent we had. It overshadowed what the main goal was.”
Meridian 54, King’s 46
The Trojans, whose roster is full of players who contributed to the school’s 1A football title run last fall, upset the Knights and knocked them into the consolation bracket March 1.
Meridian nearly beat King’s on the Knights’ home floor in the District 1 tournament and this time got the job done.
Andrei Lintz, a 6-foot, 4-inch junior post, led Meridian with 20 points and five rebounds.
The Knights fell behind by 11 at the half after shooting only 25 percent from the field. In the first half they missed 16 of 18 shots within six feet of the hoop, Morris said. They rallied in the second half, shooting 52 percent from the field but the comeback fell short. The Trojans shot 47 percent for the game.
Biniam Tadele led King’s with 18 points.
King’s 54, Tenino 49
King’s took a 32-18 halftime lead against Tenino and then hung on in the second half to win Feb. 28 in the opening round.
Tadele led King’s with 11 points and Trey Wright added 10. King’s shot 45.5 percent from the field compared to 34.5 percent for Tenino, which was led by Danny Colley’s 17 points.
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