Cheney boys move on to state

Somewhere along the line someone forgot to tell the Cheney Blackhawks that they were the underdogs for the final game of the District 7 2A tournament Saturday at Eastern Washington’s Reese Court.

Cheney knocked off Pullman 54-42 to claim the final boys state tournament berth and end the Greyhounds’ season.

It will be the Blackhawks’ first state tournament appearance at 2A and their first since playing in the State 3A tournament in 2001.

“This was a big win for us,” Cheney coach Ryan Fitzgerald said. “We talked about not being timid for this game. We got a little timid against them and lost leads. We didn’t want to let that happen this time.”

The Greyhounds (18-4), ranked No. 3 in the final state AP poll and the Great Northern League’s regular-season champion, won both regular-season meetings with Cheney. This is the second consecutive year that a Pullman team has won the GNL regular season but failed to qualify for the state tournament.

Last year the Pullman girls brought a 21-0 record into the district tournament, only to lose back-to-back games to Clarkston and Cheney.

Pullman handled early Cheney attacks and held an 11-6 lead after a quarter.

Cheney (16-7) took control late in the second quarter.

Down 24-17 with just more than 2 minutes to play in the half, DeAngelo Jones drilled back-to-back 3-pointers followed by a baseline jumper to give the Blackhawks the lead going into intermission.

Halftime did little to cool off the sophomore guard. He drilled a jumper in the lane to pad the lead and Brandon Hardie added a 3-pointer to give Cheney a 28-24 advantage.

The Greyhounds managed to tie the game at 32-all with 2:20 left in the third, but Cheney put on a flourish from the free-throw line to take a four-point lead into the final quarter.

With 39.5 seconds left, senior Griffon Jones missed the free throw on what would have been a three-point play.

DeAngelo Jones rebounded the missed free throw and was fouled attempting the putback. He missed the second of two free throws, but Daniel Igbinoba put back the miss and added a free throw to complete a six-point run in less than 5 seconds.

“That was a huge series for us – especially when we have a sophomore (Igbinoba) step up for us and finish it off,” Fitzgerald said.

“In our earlier games with them we did not rebound missed free throws very well at all.”

DeAngelo Jones finished with 18 points to lead the Blackhawks, with Griffon Jones adding another 14.

A.J. Sandford led Pullman with a 16-point effort.

Girls

The Clarkston Bantams are headed back to state.

Clarkston, which lost to Medical Lake twice during the regular season, put the defensive clamps on the Cardinals to claim the No. 3 seed with a 53-29 victory.

Kellie McCann-Smith scored seven of her team’s nine first-quarter points to get the Bantams out of the blocks. The team converted 6 of 10 free-throw attempts in the first half to hold onto a 20-17 lead at intermission.

From there, it was the Clarkston defense that took over.

McCann-Smith, the leading scorer in the Great Northern League, scored a game-high 26 points.

The sophomore guard averaged 17.5 ppg through 14 league contests.

Tareski led the Cardinals with a 12-point effort.