Crusaders on task
It wasn’t pretty, but it was enough – for Northwest Christian, anyway.
The Crusaders of Colbert are bound for the state title game again after defeating Darrington 48-39 in the late semifinal Friday night at the boys State 2B basketball tournament at the Arena.
NWC won’t be going after its second straight title against season-long rival Republic. The Tigers fell 60-47 to second-ranked Wahkiakum and will play Darrington in the third- and sixth-place game today at 3:30 p.m. The Crusaders and Mules meet for the championship at 8.
“We’re disappointed,” NWC coach Ray Ricks said “We come from the same district and we wanted to see Republic again – it’s been a nice rivalry – but it’s just great to be back in the championship game. It doesn’t always work out exactly the way you want.”
The Crusaders took the lead for good at 14-12 when Chase Ramey hit a pull-up jumper to open second-quarter scoring.
Sophomores Ramey, who led NWC with 17 points, and Matt Zandbergen accounted for all of the Crusaders points in the second quarter, as they outscored the Loggers 15-6 to take a 27-18 lead into the locker room at the half.
“We came out and didn’t really hit that many shots,” Ramey said. “We took a lot of shots, but I think our work on defense allowed us to make a run on offense. Our defensive pressure really set the tone.”
And it had to.
The Crusaders were 16 of 51 from the field. Darrington was right there as well, finishing 17 for 51. But NWC forced 17 turnovers and made its shots at just the right time.
The Loggers closed the gap to three points at 35-32 when Brennan Vincent nailed a right-wing bucket. Vincent, the Loggers’ leading scorer, was relatively quiet in the game with nine points.
“Derek Iranon did a great job on Vincent,” Ricks said. “It wasn’t the prettiest basketball we’ve played, but we did what we needed to do to get through.”
The Crusaders ultimately won the game from the free-throw line. NWC finished 17 for 24 and Darrington missed half of its opportunities, making 8 of 16.
“(Chase) really came through with those free throws at the end,” Ricks said of Ramey, who was 4 for 4 from the line down the stretch and 8 for 8 overall. “That was huge.
“I’m just real proud of these guys,” he added. “They stayed the course all year and believed in each other as teammates and it has shown. We wanted to get back to the title game, and there are a lot of things that can go wrong before that happens, so I’m real pleased.”
For Republic, it went wrong.
The same problem that has been plaguing the Tigers in postseason play held them back once again – poor shooting.
“We just haven’t played good,” Republic coach John Gianukakis said. “We haven’t found it this week. And a good team beat us tonight. They were as good as a team can play. I was disappointed in our overall effort, really.
“We’ve been in a funk and we just haven’t played very well. It’s too bad, because we’re a really good team, but we haven’t showed that at all this week.”
The Tigers were 17 of 53 from the field, 9 of 29 from beyond the arc.
The Mules did their job on Cody Groth, holding the senior guard to six points. Todd Orestad finished with a 19-point performance and Derek Gianukakis scored 15 points.
Wahkiakum’s Toby David shared day-high scoring honors with 20 points and added 10 rebounds. Brandon Ferguson and Travis Bain combined for another 20 points as the Mules collectively shot 23 for 46 (50 percent) from the field.
“You know how I said last night was our best game? We topped it,” Wahkiakum coach Bill Olsen said. “They were focused. They never took a play off.”