Cougars rally back within three, then fall 59-53

By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

The final game of White Swan’s Cinderella run through the 1A boys tournament — the one that earned Seattle Christian the third-place trophy — could be boiled down to one possession.

White Swan's Chris Jones swats the ball from Seattle Christian's Bryon Jansen as Andrew Aranda helps with the pressure during Saturday's game. .   SANDY SUMMERS/Yakima Herald-Republic View all photos for this story.

One very long, and for the Cougars, very frustrating, Warrior possession.

Seattle Christian’s Trevor Peterson, who would finish with 20 points in the Warriors’ hard-earned 59-53 victory, drove the baseline and missed a layup.

Bryon Jensen, who at 6-foot-7 was several inches taller than anyone in the Cougar lineup, got the rebound. He got the ball to 6-4 John Finn, who missed. Sean Maloy, who is also 6-4, got the rebound and shot. He missed. Jansen rebounded and shot. He missed. Maloy rebounded and shot. He missed.

Finally, the ball was kicked out to Peterson, who swished a 3-pointer.

And that, in a nutshell, was the game. White Swan couldn’t compete under the boards with the much taller Warriors, and Seattle Christian couldn’t seem to miss a 3-pointer.

And yet the game was still close.

“They’re athletic and they have so much heart,” Peterson said of the Cougars, whose every rally seem to end on a Seattle Christian 3-pointer, of which there were eight. Five of them, on just six attempts, were by guard Lance Myers, whose back-to-back treys midway through the third quarter ignited a 17-4 run that bumped the Warriors’ from 30-29 to 47-33 with barely 6 1/2 minutes remaining.

“That is the only role I have, basically — to come in and shoot 3-pointers,” Myers said with a little grin. “It’s just confidence. I guess (coach Roger DeBoer) has just got the confidence that I can come in and do what God has given me the ability to do.”

And, oh, did Myers do it, especially his third-quarter 3-pointers that broke the game open.

“Those,” Peterson said, “were huge.”

But still, the Cougars would not go away. They cut that 14-point deficit to three, 56-53, with Jones scoring 11 points and Jermaine Aguilar seven during a 20-9 run that ended in the final 30 seconds. In the end, they ran out of time, height, luck and points.

“We definitely left it all on the floor,” White Swan coach Ray Funk said with a sigh. “They had a heckuva tournament.”

And Chris Jones was all but unstoppable. The Cougar senior scored 28 points, shooting 8-for-14 from the floor, draining 10 of 11 free throws, coming up with two steals, both of which he turned into baskets at the other end. After the game, Seattle Christian’s coaches were shaking their head in awe over his performance, while Funk — as well as all of his players — were simply in tears at the end of an emotional season.

“That’s fitting for a player like Chris, that that’s the way he’s going to go out, with a performance like that,” Funk said. “The tears in (the locker room) from everybody aren’t about losing the game. It’s for the end of the season. These guys are just so sad that they’re not going to be able to together any more.”

That they will take home a sixth-place trophy, something that would have seemed inconceivable last fall when Ken Fiander — who had 10 points and seven rebounds Saturday — suffered a knee injury that nearly cost him the entire season. The trophy was only the school’s second ever in the 1A tournament, and their first state-tourney trophy of any kind since 1987, when Funk and Jones’ dad, Don, were on the team.

But the trophy was small consolation for Jones, who said softly, “I’m just sad the season’s over.”

And those postgame tears didn’t end quickly.