Floyd Gives All, But Toutle Lake Takes On Dayton

Three times the basketball came right to the one player Toutle Lake dreaded the most.

Three times the Ducks sidestepped a bullet.

Ryan Floyd did everything he could for SpragueHarrington on Friday, short of carrying the secondranked Falcons to the title game of the 53rd boys State B basketball tournament.

Floyd scored 36 points and set a tournament record with eight 3-pointers in a game. Yet he’ll carry with him the memory of missing three short shots in the final 7 seconds.

“We threw everything we had at him,” Toutle Lake coach Eric Swanson said of Floyd.

“And Floyd gave every ounce he had,” countered S-H coach Jay Aune.

Fifth-ranked Toutle Lake (25-1) escaped, 67-65, and plays for its first title at 9:10 tonight in the Coliseum.

In a rematch of last December’s B-11 football final, Toutle Lake will meet fourth-ranked Dayton (27-1), also looking for its first basketball championship. Dayton outlasted second-ranked Adna 53-44 in the evening’s other semifinal.

Adna (24-2) and S-H (28-2) play for third and sixth places at 4 p.m.

Toutle Lake 67, S-H 65

A pair of free throws by S-H’s David Countryman with 1:46 left were the game’s last points.

The final frenzied minute began when Toutle Lake pulled in offensive rebounds on two missed shots and one missed free throw.

Floyd stole the ball with 36 seconds left and followed with a bad shot. The Falcons fouled Nick Andrew, who missed the front end of a one-and-one with 23 seconds to go.

S-H had an inbounds play with 10 seconds left. Floyd tried a baseline jumper that bounced off to the other sideline. Gary Wick of the Ducks whipped the ball back toward the middle, where a waiting Floyd missed a shot from inside the paint, then couldn’t get the tip to fall at the buzzer.

Neither team played at full strength. Toutle Lake guard Kevin Grabenhorst, who was averaging 24.5 points per tournament game, twisted his right ankle and missed the second quarter. The Falcons again were without post Nick Colbert, who missed most of the second quarter, half of the third quarter and the final 6:57 because of fouls.

When Colbert played in the third quarter, S-H assembled an 11-0 run that turned a 41-32 deficit into a slight lead.

“I hate to pinpoint (Colbert), but you need him in there at this stage of the game,” Aune said. “We were told to go after him and get him in foul trouble,” said Andrew, who scored a team-high 18.

Dayton 54, Adna 44

Bulldogs scoring leader Will Hutchens, held to six points through three quarters, made 6 of 6 free throws in the final 48 seconds and finished with a game-high 16.

Dayton broke a 37-37 tie with a 9-1 run at the start of the fourth quarter. Reserve Mike Gembala had one basket, two free throws and an assist to Hutchens during the streak.

“Dayton’s experience at the state tournament showed,” said Adna coach Jeff Beasley. “They never let us get over the hump.”

The Bulldogs could have withered when their tallest player, 6-foot-3 Jeff Skeeter, left in the first quarter with a sprained right ankle. (Skeeter returned for 2 minutes in the second, but again went down.)

Instead, Dayton strung together a 19-0 run that had the Pirates in dire straits.

‘That’s quite a situation, when you lose your tallest player and you’re going against a 7-footer (Jeff Ellis),” said Dayton coach Jay Webber. “It didn’t look too bright.”

Jeremy Hubbard (6-1) drew Ellis on defense and held him to 12 points.

“You have to come to state to find something like a 7-footer,” Hubbard said. “But I enjoyed the challenge.”

Adna twice caught Dayton, at 24 and 37, but the Pirates lost a spark when Joel Humphrey took his 3-point touch to the bench because of foul trouble.