MOUNTLAKE TERRACE
On to Yakima.
The King’s boys basketball team faces the Kalama Chinooks at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 4 in the first round of the state 1A basketball championships at the Yakima SunDome.
King’s entered the 1A state tournament as a No. 1 seed from District 1 and No. 3 seed from its tri-district after No. 1-ranked Vashon Island hung onto beat the Knights 42-35, Friday, Feb. 27 at Mountlake Terrace High School.
“I’m happy with my basketball team,” second-year King’s coach Bill Liley said. “We’re going to be a very tough out. I truly believe that. We had a lot of points and assists on the bench today with Alex Mar (who was out with the flu). He’s our engine. He makes us go.”
The Knights first round opponent, Kalama (17-8), beat eighth-ranked Onalaska 55-46 in a winner-to-state game Feb. 25 and then beat Ilwaco 70-59 Feb. 27 to qualify as the No. 3 seed to state from the Southwest 1A District.
Kalama, which is led by guards Brandon Walker and Robby Sanders, and post Matt Pollock, finished fourth in its league and had to win a pig-tail game to make it to the postseason, according to the The Daily News of Longview.
King’s gave Vashon and its huge front line of 6-9 John Gage, 6-8 Charlie Hoffman and 6-7 Alex Wegner, a battle.
Shooting guard Nick Hardy, who had to bring the ball up and play the point some of time with usual point guard Mar out with the flu, hit a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 39-35 with 53 seconds to go.
But as was the case for much of the fourth quarter, the Knights could not capitalize on opportunities to get closer and Vashon closed out the game.
King’s went scoreless on six possessions in a row in the fourth quarter and could not cut into what was then a seven-point lead. Vashon finally broke the drought by both teams on a pair of free throws from Wegner with 1:44 to play.
The Pirates’ Gage led all scorers with 13 points.
“It was great,” Gage said. “It showed how much we’ve grown since last year. Last year we’d get in those kind of games and we’d almost falter off. But this year we stood up to the challenge and fought to the end. “
Without Mar and also Kyle Talbot for most of the second half, after suffering a hand injury, Liley was still proud of the effort.
“It’s not important that we beat these guys now, it’s important that we beat them next week,” Liley said. “There’s a lot of cameras rolling here from a lot of places around the state. They want to see all of our stuff. We’re in state, we got a No. 1 seed, and a true No. 1 would have been nice. If the kids had played well enough to beat those guys, that would’ve been nice. We played some guys that I wanted to see contribute today. They did, we went about nine deep today.”
Hardy said the offense struggled to get going without Mar and Talbot.
“It was real tough because they could press us the whole game. Once we have Mar back they’ll have to play a half-court defense,” Hardy said. “Once we have Mar back that will help out and hopefully we’ll have Kyle back healthy for state.”
Defensively, the Knights played a solid game, putting Karl Clocksin man-to-man on Gage and playing zone on everyone else.
Gage scored two points below his average and no other Pirate scored in double figures.
Clocksin led King’s with 10 points and Ryan Hoff added eight.
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