SEATTLE
With its pride on the line, the King’s boys basketball team didn’t want to risk being unprepared for Bellevue Christian in the King Holiday Hoopfest, Monday, Jan. 19.
The Knights had a 7 a.m. shoot around at Mike Martin Gym before heading down to the University of Washington’s Hec Edmundson Pavilion for the 9:30 a.m. game.
The wide awake Knights burst out to an 11-0 lead and made their first eight field goals en route to a 59-52 victory.
Bellevue Christian blew out King’s, 79-38, the last time the two teams played at the 1A state tournament in March 2007. In that game, Bellevue Christian guard Jeff Downs scored more points than the entire King’s team and broke King’s alum Chris Faidley’s all-time 1A tournament scoring record.
Karl Clocksin, who was named the game’s most valuable player on Monday, said the players had been talking about that game and were playing for pride.
“You have to show some pride out here,” he said. “They’re a good team. They brought it back within reach but we held on.”
King’s came out on fire, thanks to a screen-and-roll play to Clocksin and Kyle Talbot and a 3-pointer from Nick Hardy.
“We talked about having a quick start,” King’s coach Bill Liley said.
“Our feet were like glued to the floor,” Bellevue Christian coach Mike Downs said.
King’s led 20-11 after the first quarter and by as many as 15 in the second.
King’s took a 16-point lead early in the third on a basket by Clocksin, but the Vikings rallied to get within five.
Bellevue Christian’s David Downs scored 18 of his game-high 27 points in the second half to help the rally. The Vikings cut it to 53-48 with 2:23 left on a Downs free throw, but that’s as close as they would get.
King’s co-captains Hardy and Alex Mar made four free throws in the final minute to put the game out of reach.
The Vikings didn’t have much time to prepare for what King’s does, and had trouble in the first half with their screens on offense and switches on defense, Downs said.
“Our effort the first half wasn’t what it needed to be,” Downs said.
The Vikings shot 72 percent from the field in the second half and 54 percent for the game (21-of-39) but made only 7-of-16 free throws for 44 percent.
Hardy led King’s with 15 points, 12 of them coming in the first half. Talbot scored 14 points while Clocksin added 12. Talbot played his best half of the season in the first half before fouling out in the second, Liley said. Clocksin took a shot to the mouth during a play where he picked up a foul during the first half. He sported a bloody lip but came back to finish up a strong game.
King’s made 47 percent of its field goals on 23-of-49 shooting, including three 3-pointers, two by Hardy and one by Zach McDonald. The Knights made 67 percent of their free throws on 10-of-15 shooting.
“We wanted to come back and play well,” Liley said. “It’s about this team right now, what they can be.”
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