Grandview's James Vela goes up for a shot past Mount Baker's Brandon Welch during the second half Wednesday. Vela scored 16 points as the Greyhounds won 55-48.   JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic View all photos for this story.

Vela, Andrews spark Grandview's 55-48 win

By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Let us count the ways the Grandview boys could, or perhaps even should, have lost their opening game of the Class 2A state basketball tournament to Mount Baker.

1) Normally a great passing team, they managed only six assists.

2) Normally an accurate shooting team, the Greyhounds missed seven of their first eight shots from the field and ended up misfiring two-thirds of the time. They also missed 15 free throws.

3) They normally live on their opponents’ turnovers. On Wednesday, they almost died on their own back-to-back-to-back turnovers in a 1:08 span late in the fourth quarter as they watched a 10-point lead dwindle to four.

4) All-league standout Chris Mejia suffered through probably the biggest off night he’s ever had, shooting 0-for-7 from the field.

5) The ’Hounds got killed on the boards.

And yet they didn’t lose. Grandview’s 55-48 victory was both the result of one hot quarter by one player — Anthony Andrews, whose 5-for-5 shooting in the third included a trio of 3-pointers — and four frigid quarters by Mount Baker.

“Wow,” Grandview coach Scott Parrish said, thinking about Andrews’ 14-point third quarter. “Yeah, that was the difference in the game. We got that little run with Anthony hitting those 3’s and got the lead up. I think Anthony sensed that somebody really needed to step up and make some shots, and he did.

“They (the Mounties) didn’t quit, though.”

No, they just couldn’t make a shot. Mount Baker shot 23.1 percent for the game, and standout 6-3 guard Levi Garrett — who had canned a single-season school-record 53 3-pointers coming in — missed 9 of 10 treys and shot 3-for-17.

“First time in the dome. First time in this setting,” Mounties coach Rob Gray said. “Levi has never played in a state-tournament setting in his life in any sport. He was a little bit nervous, I think — but I also think they did a good job of not giving him any good looks at the basket.

“They’re a very, very good basketball team.”

But the Greyhounds (22-2) shambled off the court after the game looking as if they’d lost the game.

“That was a tough one. It wasn’t very pretty, but we won,” said Adam Dion, whose 10 points backed up the game-high 16 by James Vela and Andrews’ 15. “They play pretty physical. They don’t let you go through the lane without touching you, ever. We kind of fell into their game a little bit, didn’t really play our own.”

Mount Baker was within 18-17 late in the second quarter before Grandview scored the last six points of the half, including the final three on a Vela 3-pointer. Then Andrews went off in the third period, his last two back-to-back treys giving the ’Hounds a 40-26 lead. Mount Baker never got closer than four points the rest of the way.

“That’s the thing about our team,” Andrews said. “If one guy isn’t hitting, if Chris (Mejia) or Jimmy (Vela) isn’t contributing like they usually do, we’ve got other guys who can step up, like me or Adam (Dion). It’s always a team effort.”

And it was a Grandview team win, offsetting a 12-point night by the Mounties’ Brad Backstrom and a dominant Mount Baker rebounding edge, led by Garrett’s 11 boards. And it even offset a late (and very rare) technical foul call on Parrish, who’d been whistled for just one all season.

“It felt like a lot of pressure out there,” Andrews said. “But we pulled through.”