Medical Lake feels like dancing after taking title

YAKIMA – Andy Davis had just one word to describe the Medical Lake boys basketball team’s implausible comeback late Saturday night: faith.

“You’ve got to have faith that things are going to happen,” Davis said after Medical Lake rallied from a 16-point deficit to pull out a 44-41 victory in the State 2A championship game at the Yakima SunDome.

Davis made both ends of a one-and-one with 8 seconds remaining and the Cardinals watched a 3-point attempt from the corner bounce away as time expired.

As the horn sounded, Medical Lake coach Arnold Brown sprinted across the court and started dancing as the celebration ensued.

“We were getting our butts kicked the whole game,” Brown said, retreating to the sideline to catch his breath as beads of sweat rolled off his head from his celebratory jig. “I can’t believe it. I told our seniors it’s time – it’s do or die. Andy Davis stepped up for us big time. He’s a senior and our quarterback in football. We needed some kind of spark. He came in and I told him to feel free to shoot it on the 3-(point) line and he made some big plays for us.”

As with most of the Cardinals’ wins this year, the turnaround began with defense. A change from zone to man-to-man, in fact.

Almost like hitting a light switch, when ML (22-4) made the change the Jackrabbits (21-7) quit scoring.

Gabe Lopez got behind the Cardinals’ zone for an uncontested layup that put Quincy ahead 37-23 with 3:54 left in the third quarter. That would be the Jackrabbits’ last basket until the 2:22 mark of the fourth period.

In between, the Cardinals ran off 19 straight points. ML pulled within 37-36 when Davis hit a long 3-pointer from the baseline with 5:47 to go in the fourth quarter and a 5-foot jumper by Steven Wesley 1:12 later put the Cards ahead for good at 38-37.

A driving basket by Kevin Broadnax completed the run, extending ML’s lead to 42-37 with 2:43 remaining.

A basket by Smokey Baughman in the low block broke Quincy’s drought, cutting the Cardinals’ lead to 42-39. Chris Pontarolo-Maag made two free throws to pull the Jackrabbits within 42-41 with 1:50 remaining.

But the Jackrabbits wouldn’t get the ball back until after Davis’ free throws as ML took a page out of Quincy’s playbook and took 1:42 off the clock.

“We were so emotional at the beginning; we were all in tears (in the locker room),” Brown said of a pregame talk when he thanked his players for a fine season regardless of the title-game outcome. “I think that affected us in the first half.”

ML found itself trailing 25-14 at halftime when Lopez banked in a 5-foot runner two seconds before the second quarter concluded.

Quincy’s 3-point shooting ace Matt Medina, who made all three of his long-range attempts in the first half, opened the second half by making two more. His two free throws gave the Jackrabbits their biggest lead at 30-14 at the 6:18 mark of the third quarter.

Medina, who finished with a game-high 21 points, missed his final four 3-point attempts.

Davis, who didn’t play in the first half, scored all nine of his points in 14 minutes in the second half. Wesley led with 12 points and Tanner Tareski added 11.

“It’s a storybook season for us – that’s what we talked about (in the locker room),” said Brown, whose team won 16 of its final 18 games after opening the Great Northern League with back-to-back losses. “In the (state) tournament, we talked about opening the curtain and closing the curtain. We started at 9 in the morning (Wednesday). So we said we wanted to close it by ending it. We just fought back.”

Quincy coach Wade Petersen said his team’s failure to finish was mainly due to the Jackrabbits’ mistakes.

“We were able to get the shots to fall in the first half, but not later in the game when we needed them,” Petersen said.

Wesley was named to the all-tournament first team. Steven Gray of Chimacum was named the most valuable player. Medina, Matt Caples of Cashmere and Kyle Coston of Lynden Christian also were named to the first team.