Bears confidence gets them to tourney

Keep it close.

That’s been a mantra for the Central Valley Bears boys basketball team. If we can keep it close, they say, we can find a way to win.

That’s been the case through the team’s first 23 games en route to an 18-5 record and a berth in the District 8 4A high school tournament championship game. Number 4 district seed Central Valley clinched a home game against a team from the Big Nine Conference next Tuesday by knocking off No. 5 seed Mead 57-51 and No. 2 seed Ferris 58-55 in overtime earlier this week. It was just the second loss of the year for Ferris.

CV faces Mt. Spokane for the 1-2 seeds to the 4A Eastern Regional Tournament next week. The Bears will be one of eight teams vying for the three state berths.

“That’s the thing about this group,” coach Rick Sloan said. “If they can stay within six or seven points of an opponent late, they find a way to win. We’ve won every one of those games.”

Of the Bears’ five losses, four were by 10 or more points. A 57-48 loss at home to West Valley is the team’s lone single-digit defeat.

“We just have a lot of confidence,” guard Luke Clift said. “We just know that someone is going to find a way to get the job done.

“Our coach always says that coaches find ways to keep the game close, but kids are the ones who have to win it in the end.”

To be sure, the team’s patient stalking of opponents belies the team’s makeup. The Bears’ roster has just three seniors: forward Brad Johnson and guards Brad Dieter and Matt Morgan. Point guard Kevin Cameron and post Nick Ambrose both are juniors, and Clift is a sophomore.

“I’m not entirely sure why that is,” Ambrose said. “We just go out there and do what we have to do to win.”

That was apparent Tuesday night, when the No. 4 seeded Bears held off No. 5 Mead in a loser-out game.

The Panthers buried nine three-point field goals in the first half but could manage just a three-point lead at intermission. Central Valley took control in the second half and salted the game away on free throws by Cameron and Morgan in the final minute, and a midcourt steal of an in-bounds pass by Johnson in the closing seconds.

“(Mead) couldn’t miss there for a while,” Ambrose said. “But we knew they couldn’t shoot that way the whole game. If they did, we just weren’t destined to win. We kept playing hard and kept it close. We knew if we could do that, we would find a way to win it at the end.”

The win was especially satisfying, Clift said.

“Games like that, that’s what you play the whole season for,” he said. “To play a game like that and to get the chance to play another game – that’s what it’s all about.”

Ambrose’s ability to get to the basket is vital key to the Central Valley offense – even when the ball does not fall.

“That was a little frustrating,” he admitted. “It’s been that way the last couple of games. But you have to keep going, keep shooting.”

“Nick has struggled a little bit the last couple games,” Sloan said. “But what he does is still a big part of what we have to do.”

At 6-foot-4 1/2, Ambrose is Central Valley’s tallest player, but is undersized compared to some Greater Spokane League posts.

Against Mead, for example, Ambrose faced three Panther starters 6-4 or taller.

“It gets a little frustrating, but it’s the role I have on this team, and I still go out there and do it to the best of my ability,” Ambrose said. “I think not being as big as some guys in this league can work to my advantage. I think I can move better and faster in the post because I’m not so big.”

Offense is an occasional challenge for the Bears.

“We go out and concentrate on the things we can always do,” Clift said. “We go out there every day and work on playing good defense and work on rebounding. We can always play defense. We can always rebound hard. Somewhere we find a way to score.

“On the other hand, we don’t have to rely on one guy to win the game for us. That makes it harder for teams to defend us.”

“We all know what we have to do and we’re all pretty good friends,” Ambrose said. “We all have confidence in each other. If one of us is not playing well in one game, we have a way of picking him up.”

Sloan just smiles.

“The great thing about this team is that I get most of them back next year,” he said.