Ach Takes Step Toward Its Stated Goal
Jim Wacker’s pearls of wisdom are typically mixed with sly humor and gentle putdowns.
Yet Wacker adopted a different tactic last week, when his Almira/Coulee-Hartline Warriors came within an eyelash of missing the state tournament.
The delivered message, serious in tone, involved the fate of Bi-County League rival Sprague-Harrington, which came into last year’s District 7 Tournament with high hopes but had to fight like mad to reach state. Once at state, S-H nearly made the final.
The same goal, without the “nearly,” is on the minds of ACH (21-4) after Wednesday’s 65-52 win over La Conner during the night session of the 54th boys State B high school basketball tournament at the Arena.
“I don’t think anyone could have beaten us tonight,” said Warriors senior guard Aaron Murray, whose 27 points and 10 rebounds led all players.
“We excited to be here because there were times at district we played horrible.”
Whether ACH can keep the ball rolling will be severely tested in tonight’s quarterfinal against Pateros. The regular-season meeting between the two went to Pateros, 69-56.
La Conner (17-9) came into state on a high note, having won the Tri-District Tournament after opening the season 5-5. Yet the Braves met the same fate as the other 28 La Conner teams to qualify for state: no title-game appearance.
ACH knew little about La Conner except that the team was young and fast. Whatever the Braves knew about ACH, they should have studied Murray a bit longer.
Against several defenses, Murray scored nine in the first quarter and eight in the second and third quarters. He made 12 of 18 from the field, many shots from close range.
“They either had a small guy on me or a big guy,” Murray said. “The small guy I’d shoot over and the big guy I’d burn.”
Added Wacker, “We wore them down. We found we could pick-and-roll to Murray - isolate him - which we haven’t done much of this year.”
ACH broke ahead 10-2 and withstood a few La Conner mini-flurries through the first 11 minutes. A 15-4 Warriors run to close out the second quarter also closed out the Braves.
“We were taking it to the hole well and getting the open shots,” Murray said.
The Warriors generally rely on balance; throw out Murray and that was again the case. Nine other Warriors scored, none more than eight points. Matt Elder led the “feed Murray” parade with five assists.
Young La Conner showed its nerves from the field. Freshman Andy Otis (11.6 ppg) missed 13 of 17 field goals and T.J. Sophussen (11.5 ppg), despite his senior status, was 2 of 11 from the floor.
As opposed to the nerve-wracking district tournament, when the Warriors fought through the losers bracket, fun was Wednesday’s operative word.
“Hey, the pressure’s off,” Wacker said. “We made it here.”
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