MOUNT VERNON — The Lynden Christian boys basketball team’s tough, in-your-face, man-to-man defense stymied the King’s offense in the Class 2A Northwest District championship game March 3 at Mount Vernon High School.
“Defense is what won us this game,” said Lynden Christian guard Greg Burgers, who scored a game-high 20 points.
The game was tied at 24 at the half but Lynden Christian, ranked second in Class 2A by WashingtonPreps.com, outscored the fifth-ranked Knights 22-9 in the second half to emerge with the 46-33 win.
“The plan was just to play them tough man-to-man,” Burgers said. “We just wanted to contest shots.”
King’s 6-foot, 9-inch center Charlie Enquist finished with 15 points and point guard Jared Madrazo scored 14, including four 3-pointers, but the Lyncs shut down the rest of the Knights. King’s forward Carson Bowlin (four points) was the only other Knight to score in the game.
Burgers said the Lyncs expected the Knights’ two offensive standouts, Enquist and Madrazo, to make some tough shots but they were able to limit the tandem enough to win.
Lynden Christian raced out to a 15-5 lead but King’s responded with a 14-4 run, tying it at 19 on a 3-pointer by Madrazo with 3 minutes, 42 seconds left in the half.
Early in the third quarter, Burgers broke a 24-24 tie with five quick points. King’s struggled to get anything going on offense and fell behind 37-28 early in the fourth quarter. Madrazo buried a 3-pointer and Bowlin scored inside to cut the lead to four with about five minutes to play.
But that’s as close as the Knights would get. The Lyncs’ defense tightened up and they ended the game on a 9-0 run.
King’s made only 12-of-43 field goals in the game for 27.9 percent while Lynden Christian made 15-of-31 shots for 48.4 percent.
Burgers, who made 6-of-8 field goals and all seven of his free throws, downplayed his stellar offensive performance. He credited teammate Kyle Coston’s 14-point, nine-rebound night for giving the Lyncs a boost.
“With this team anybody can go off on any given night,” Burgers said.
The Lyncs dominated the glass, outrebounding the Knights, 34-15.
“They just came out and beat us this game to be honest. They beat us on rebounds,” Madrazo said. “We played a little intimidated and we got to fix that. I know we can fix it. That team is definitely beatable, tonight they beat us hopefully next week we’ll see them again.”
The Knights and Lyncs had already clinched state Class 2A tournament berths with semifinal wins in the district tournament. They are in opposite halves of the bracket in the state draw.
The Knights’ locker room was subdued after the loss to the Lyncs with players and coaches in search of answers.
“We just got whipped tonight, plain and simple. They are a better basketball team than we are right now,” King’s head coach Marv Morris said.
“We were greatly disappointed in our performance tonight, greatly disappointed. I never thought that we would have the trouble we had tonight. I got to give them credit,” Morris said. “Whatever they did defensively, they came out and physically manhandled us. I think that we got a lot of things to work on. I think there’s a lot of disappointment here. We’re a better basketball team than that and we got to go prove that.”
Morris felt his team played well enough defensively, holding Lynden Christian to 46 points but simply couldn’t find ways to score.
“Our guys have got to make major improvements offensively,” Morris said, if they expect to beat teams at state.
King’s senior forward Matt McKay started in place of Andrew Lutton who missed the game because of an illness. McKay grabbed a team-high seven rebounds in 30 minutes of action, but did not score.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
