Cardinals bounced from state 1A hoops tournament

Then Medical Lake boy’s basketball coach Arnold Brown was pretty quick to offer an explanation on why his team made a quick exit from the state 1A tournament last week at the Yakima Sun Dome.

“The whole tournament was third-quarter blues for us,” Brown said after losses to Kings Way Christian, 47-45 March 3 and Zillah 71-57 the following day. The Cardinals finished seventh when all the balls stopped bouncing and was voted the No. 5 local sports story in 2016.

In each game Medical Lake faltered coming out of the locker room after halftime.

Versus Kings Way, Medical Lake held a 29-21 lead at the break but the Knights’ 17-11 edge in the third cut it to a two-point game — 40-38— and they won it with a basket with 10 seconds remaining from Kienan Walter with the last of his game-high 24 points. The Knights also won the fourth quarter battle 9-5.

Karter Graves hit the front end of a one-and-one to tie the game at 45-45, but his miss was rebounded by Walter who converted for the winning basket.

“It’s almost like I wish there was no halftime,” Brown said as he watched his team finish 19-9 on the season and reach the tournament for the first time since 2005 when they were state champs.

Against Zillah, the state’s No. 1 ranked team until their upset loss, 65-63 to, Kings High, also in the opening round, Medical Lake led 36-34 at the half before the Leopards dominated the third quarter 21-4.

“Obviously they’re a good team, they’re ranked No. 1 all year,” Brown said of Zillah. “The first half we decided let’s go with it, let’s run with them.”

“It worked out OK,” Brown added. “I think we hit eight 3s in the first half,” but the well ran dry in the third. “We didn’t shoot well in the third quarter they shot well.”

If there was another defining number in the game it was the 20-8 edge Zillah had in free throws. That was 12 of the Leopards’ 14-point final margin of victory as 3-point baskets were even and Zillah had a 12-11 edge in field goals.

Cory Wagner led the Cards with 13 points and was the only scorer in double figures. Cooper James, Trenten Garza, Jaelon Stith and Joey Jasmer all had nine.

Turnovers leading to baskets was one thing Brown said hurt the most, however. “We had probably five or six turnovers that went directly to a basket,” he said.

Stith and Wagner were the force for the Cardinals against Kings Way, scoring 20 and 15 points respectively.

“We had a couple of chances to win that thing,” Brown said. “A lot of easy ones we missed that we normally make.”

The Knights dialed up the long-range shooting to quickly erase the Cardinals’ 29-21 halftime lead. Graves hit three in a row to tie it at 32. “They came out and hit three 3s in a minute and a half,” Brown said. “It was, ‘where did our lead go?’”

Brown told his team they had plenty of which to be proud. “We left a lot of teams at home,” he said. “Guys, I know you’re mad now but when you open up the memory cabinet you’ll just remember how you made it.”

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.