WV, NC drop state openers

TACOMA – With a key member of West Valley’s boys basketball team watching from the Tacoma Dome stands, the Eagles saw their championship dream vanish on the opening night of the State 3A tournament.

WV (19-5) lost 43-41 to the Mount Si Wildcats on a Wednesday in which Greater Spokane League 3A teams were a combined 0-3.

North Central (20-6) was beaten 65-64 by defending champion O’Dea and Clarkston’s girls lost 53-43 by Tumwater in earlier state games.

All play loser-out contests today, NC at 9 a.m., Clarkston at 10:30 and WV at 2 p.m.

Eagles 6-foot-6 third-year post E.J. Richardson, who averaged 12.3 points per game and, more important, provided a matchup problem inside for the Wildcats, was suspended by the school for an athletic code violation Monday night.

Richardson has been an integral part of WV’s team and his absence was felt on offense and in the makeup of the team on the floor.

In their effort to compensate, the Eagles played almost too hard and the result was myriad missed layups and free throws that enabled a team with not much firepower to hang around to win the close, low-scoring game.

Trailing the Eagles 41-40 following Maurice Swan’s free throw with 31 seconds left, Mount Si got to the line on Tyler Hobbs’ fifth foul. Kyle Meuli hit both free throws with 16 ticks on the clock.

Arton Toussaint drove the right side for one last errant WV layin attempt with 3 seconds left.

Neither team could muster any first-half offense.

WV fell behind by five points, then rallied behind Swan, who scored seven points and finished with 10 offensive rebounds.

WV’s biggest lead was 38-34 midway through the fourth quarter before Mount Si caught up.

“This messes up a lot of dreams for a lot of players. They’d been looking forward to this,” said WV coach Jamie Nilles. “One guy’s lack of judgment has a huge ripple effect.”

O’Dea 65, NC 64: Eric Beal’s game-ending 3-pointer speaks volumes about the Indians’ frustration in their first state tournament basketball game in nearly six decades.

The shot left the Indians one agonizing point shy of completing a remarkable 2-minute drill.

An understandable early case of the jitters left NC playing catch-up from the outset.

Beal, one of the Indians’ top two scorers, was limited to just four shots until late in the third quarter and didn’t score his first field goal until the fourth.

After falling behind by as many as 16 points, NC outscored the Irish 14-4 in the final 2:05 and trailed 60-58 with 20.4 seconds left.

NC had two chances to tie the game with less than 14 seconds remaining. But after O’Dea threw the ball away the second time, the Indians turned it back over with 6 seconds to go and Jamelle McMillan made two free throws to secure the win.

For all that, it was a 3 1/2-minute span early in the third quarter that sealed NC’s fate.

“You’ve got to look at the third quarter as just the difference in the game and playing from behind,” said NC coach Jay Webber. “We had a chance there at the end, but the game was won and lost in the third quarter.”

O’Dea went on a 14-0 run that made it 41-27 with 4:05 remaining in the period, much of the scoring in transition after challenging the Indians’ inside game and turning repeated blocked shots into fast-break layins.

Nathan Hood, who broke the pinky finger on his right hand in regionals and had it taped to the ring finger, had particular trouble handling the ball. But he created turnovers and scored seven second-quarter points, a figure matched by Damal Neil, as the Indians roared back from a 23-12 deficit for a 25-all tie a minute before half.

After falling behind by double digits again, Beal, who scored 11 fourth-quarter points, and Neil, who finished with 19, couldn’t quite overcome it.

Tumwater 53, Clarkston 43: Ahead by a point at halftime, the Bantams made just 6 of 29 second-half shots, missing numerous layins in the process, and averaged just 24.6 percent for the game.

Clarkston (13-11) led only once in the game, when Misty Atkinson made a 3-pointer for a 27-26 lead 24 seconds before halftime to rally from an early 9-2 deficit. Atkinson scored 12 of her 17 points in the first half, but was just 4 for 17 from the field.

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