Dylan Darling heats up, guides Central Valley boys over Gonzaga Prep; Lucy Lynn leads Pups girls over Bears

Central Valley guard Dylan Darling set the league record for points in a game Tuesday, scoring 58 in a victory over North Central.

With the matter of the Greater Spokane League regular-season title still to be decided, Gonzaga Prep threw everything it could at him Friday to avoid that happening twice in one week.

Darling got off to a slow start under all the attention but found his rhythm in the second half, scoring 22 points after halftime and the Bears topped Gonzaga Prep 66-61 to narrow the gap at the top of the league standings.

Darling finished with 30 points and four 3-pointers.

Coupled with Mt. Spokane’s 72-57 victory against University, the Wildcats (16-3, 6-1), Gonzaga Prep (12-7, 7-1) and Central Valley (13-6, 7-2) all still have a shot at the regular-season title.

CV’s league slate is done. Mt. Spokane is at North Central on Monday and hosts Gonzaga Prep on Tuesday.

“I wish we weren’t in that position,” Central Valley acting coach Geoff Arte said. “But yeah, I mean, we would gladly take it if we could get some help from Mt. Spokane.”

Jayden Stevens led the Bullpups with 24 points and Carter Collins added 11. G-Prep’s second-leading scorer, Jamil Miller, missed the game.

“You’re just kind of waiting for (Darling) to go off, you know, you’re not gonna be able to hold him down forever,” Gonzaga Prep coach Matty McIntyre said. “But we just didn’t play well enough. And we were unable to sustain anything offensively for enormous stretches, and so that really undid us.”

CV led by two entering the fourth quarter. Nathan Rowell and Trace Chalich hit back-to-back 3s to start the quarter and CV went up by six. Out of a timeout, Darling hit a step-back 3 and the lead grew to 15.

G-Prep completed a five-point possession, then Jackson Floyd muscled in for two. Stevens’ layup with 55 seconds left got the deficit to five, then Henry Sandberg hit a long 3 and it was a two-point game again with 20.2 seconds left.

“It’s never fun going against Prep because they make everything so hard,” Arte said. “And I think our guys are kind of learning that. There at the end of the game even when you have them down … then all of a sudden, we had to make some defensive stops.”

Rowell hit a pair from the line, Stevens missed the front end of a 1-and-1, and Darling put it out of reach with four straight free throws.

“You know that he’s gonna go off and make some shots,” McIntyre said of Darling. “So, you have to give yourself a little bit of a cushion. And we weren’t able to do that.”

“I mean, it’s not the result we wanted,” Stevens said. “We wanted this one and get the first seed in the (league) and it just didn’t go our away tonight. I was proud, though. I mean, I think we’re down 18 and we brought it back down to two. So, I was proud of us, but we just didn’t get it done tonight.”

In an attempt to slow down Darling, McIntyre had the 6-foot-7 Stevens guarding Darling man-to-man at the top of the key on the opening possession of the game.

“We got to all chuckle on the bench,” Arte said. “They’re like, ‘Oh, this could be fun.’”

“Dylan and me have been bros since like the third grade,” Stevens said. “So, coming out here our senior year and just playing against each other and being two of the top guys and just going at each other was big to me.”

It worked, at least to start.

The Bullpups employed a variety of defenses against Darling, who picked up his first basket, a contested 3, with 2 minutes left in the first – his only points of the quarter. Daniel Crowley (11 points) picked up the slack with eight points and CV led 13-12 after one quarter.

The scoring didn’t pick up in second quarter, as both teams struggled to get shots down. Darling finished the half 3 of 12 from the field, and the Bears led 26-23 at halftime.

The Bullpups came out of halftime with a 11-3 run and led by five midway through the quarter.

Darling then took over. He went the distance after a steal and then scored on a finger roll over Stevens and CV led 38-36 after three quarters. He added 12 points in the fourth.

“He’s his hardest critic,” Arte said of Darling. “We have to really get him to understand, you know, if you go 3 for 10 from the 3-point line, you’re an elite shooter. Those six misses, you just got to flush them and make the next one. And that’s kind of what he did in that third quarter.”

Girls

Gonzaga Prep 59, Central Valley 29: Lucy Lynn scored 21 points. Taliah Lee added 18 and the Bullpups (16-3, 7-1) beat the Bears (9-9, 4-5).

Sitara Byrd added 15 points for G-Prep.

Eden Sander had nine points for CV.