After feeling like they had given away their quarterfinal game a night earlier, blowing a seven-point lead against Cusick in the final 1 1/2 minutes, the Sunnyside Christian Knights were taking no chances with their winner-gets-a-trophy, loser-goes-home game Friday.

They stole it.

Again and again and again.

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The Knights’ trapping, pressing defense thwarted the Curlew Cougars’ ballhandlers time and again, forcing 34 turnovers and coming up with a tournament-record 20 steals in their 68-37 triumph.

“We watched their game last night and we noticed their strength was their post,” sophomore guard Steven Bosma said, a reference to 6-foot-9 Cougar senior Jordan Wakefield. “We looked at their guards and saw they were a little weak. We’ve got a more balanced team, and we tried to attack their guards.”

“And without their guards, they ...” Bosma paused, looking for the right phrase. “They didn’t seem to perform well.”

The Knights’ plan paid off quickly. They took command with a 14-0 scoring burst spanning the first and second quarters, during which they made five steals, then put it away with a 5 1/2-minute, 21-0 run that began just before halftime, included nine Cougar turnovers, and lasted through much of the third period.

“Our goal was to wear them down with our trapping and pressing,” said Knights coach Dean Wagenaar, whose 13-12 team will face Tulalip Heritage (22-3) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the fourth-seventh place game. “And we said, don’t ever give up on it — even if they get through the first tier, get back and keep after them. After enough of that, you could start to see it in (the Cougars’) faces, not knowing where it was coming from next.”

And the Knights did it in waves, with nine players in their regular rotation until, late in the third quarter, Wagenaar essentially cleared the bench.

“Our plan was to keep rotating guys, because we’ve got more depth,” said Steven Broersma, the Knights’ 6-5 sophomore forward. “So we were a little more fresh.”

And those fresh legs paid off on the offensive end as well, where the Knights kept going right at the 6-9 Wakefield, even after he set the tournament single-game record for blocks — in the first half. But those six first-half blocks (he would finish with seven) didn’t deter the Knights.

“It’s a mind-set you have to keep,” said Broersma, who scored a game-high 14 points on 4-for-8 shooting from the field and 6-for-7 at the line. “You have to keep going at him.”

That the Knights did, on the defensive end as well. Their defensive collapsing around Wakefield, who had averaged 21.9 points during the season, limited him to a single first-half shot attempt — he missed — and no points until late in the third quarter. The only consistent scoring threat for the Cougars turned out to be sophomore guard Tanner Somday, who got all of his 12 points on 4-for-10 3-point shooting.

That was far too little to offset the Knights’ all-around excellence Friday. They shot 45 percent for the game, passed well (12 assists, led by Matt Crabtree’s three), had three scorers in double figures — Broersma, Bosma and Tim De Vries, who combined for 36 points) — and, of course, stole the ball every time it came anywhere near any of them.

So, coach Wagenaar, were those 20 steals a school record as well as a tournament record?

“Hey, we’re all about team,” Wagenaar said. “We don’t keep that stuff.”

Bosma, who had five of those steals, said with a grin, “Well, let’s start now.”