West Valley celebrates strong finish
TACOMA – Bring back the girl-friends, the cell phones and put the bubbly – 7UP that is – on ice.
The West Valley boys basketball team locked up a fourth-place finish in the State 3A tournament at the Tacoma Dome on Saturday with a commanding 78-54 victory over Sedro-Woolley. The Eagles plan to celebrate in a big way.
“We’re gonna drink some pop and hang out with some girls tonight,” West Valley forward Tyler Hobbs (12 points) said.
The junior isn’t trying to sound brash, it’s just that West Valley coach Jamie Nilles confiscated his team’s cell phones before the tournament, made them go to bed by 11 p.m., and banned them from talking to girls this past week. The Eagles haven’t been able to drink any pop all year long.
“We were all kind of mad at the beginning, but I think it helped,” Hobbs conceded. “I mean, it kept our focus.”
Any anger that might have built up was certainly unleashed on the court. With the exception of their 54-46 loss to Columbia-Burbank, the Eagles (23-4) outscored opponents by nearly 18 points per game. On defense, they didn’t let any team score more than 54 points.
The Eagles won by consistently drilling away at the Cubs (18-9). They held a 19-12 lead after the first quarter and extended that to 36-21 by halftime.
The Cubs closed to 19-14 with 7:33 in the second quarter and 31-21 with 2:55 remaining, but the Eagles stalled on their next two possessions and capitalized on a 3-pointer and a fadeaway jumper in the paint, both by senior Rashad Toussaint (10 points) to close the first half.
“I don’t think we are as talented as a lot of other teams, but we just have a lot of chemistry,” Nilles said.
The Eagles came out in the second half resembling more of a 4x400-meter relay team than a high school basketball team playing in its 27th game of the season and fourth in four days. They pressed, trapped and flustered Sedro-Woolley on every possession until their lead ballooned to 24 points.
The Cubs had no answer for 6-foot-6 center E.J. Richardson. He had 27 points on 11-of-16 shooting, with most of his scoring coming in the paint.
“We used to call him ‘Bambi on ice’ and now he’s starting to figure it out and turning into quite the man,” Nilles said. “He had an incredible tournament.”
WV stretched its lead to 30 points with 5:20 remaining on Richardson’s two-handed dunk off of a fast break.
O’Dea 60, Mark Morris 48
Mitch Johnson scored 21 points, hitting 8 of 15 from the floor, as the Fighting Irish (26-4) defeated the Monarchs (24-4) to win the championship.