The thing that had gotten them to the Class 2A tournament had already failed them, but at the decisive moment the Grandview Greyhounds simply had their first-round game stolen from them.

Specifically, by the quick hand of Fife's Maazin Butler.

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With the score tied and Grandview guard Tony Vela driving the lane with a minute and 13 seconds remaining, Butler slapped the ball into the hands of teammate Thomas Darneille and took off for the other end, where he took a pass from Darneille and scored a layup that put the Trojans in front and on the way to their 58-55 victory.

"(Vela) drove to the right side of the lane and I poked it out of his hand -- good thing I got the ball and not his hand," Butler said with a grin. "Then Thomas made a good pass to me on the break."

Down the stretch, the Greyhounds (16-9) were victimized by the same erratic shooting that had plagued them all day. Vela missed a pair of free throws and Grandview missed its final three 3-point attempts, ending a game in which -- not counting Daniel Nielsen -- the Greyhounds were 2-for-17 from beyond the arc.

But Nielsen very much counted, and was in fact very nearly Grandview's saving grace.

Unable to hold their own on the boards against Fife (20-4)
-- which used its 3 1/2-inches-per-man advantage to build a 48-33 rebounding edge -- the Greyhounds trailed 40-32 midway through the third period. That's when Nielsen shot the Trojans right out of their zone, hitting three 3-pointers over a two-minute span to cut Fife's lead down to a single point.

In a sense, it was too much too soon. Although he hit another 3-pointer to open the fourth quarter and put Grandview up 47-45, his success prompted Fife coach Mark Schelbert to change his defense -- which, for the Trojans, turned out to be a game-saving move.

"They were in a zone, and after I hit a couple they put a bigger guy on me, and tried to deny me the ball," said Nielsen, who -- with the active, 6-foot-4 Darneille in his face the rest of the game only rarely even touched the ball over the final six minutes, and never with an open look.

Darneille, Schelbert said, is his team's best defender "when he's focused, and he was very much there today. We thought we could just switch coming off screens and pick (Nielsen) up that way, but that obviously wasn't working so we put Thomas on him. He did a superb job."

Darneille also scored 13 points, joining Cameron Hayes (17 points) and Kevin McCrossin (12) in double figures as the Trojans advanced to Thursday's quarterfinals against Burlington-Edison. Grandview will have to wake up early for a 9 a.m. consolation-bracket game against Tumwater (12-12).

Nielsen finished with a game-high 19 points, with his 7-for-15 shooting day including 5-for-8 sharpshooting on 3-pointers. But forward Derek Newhouse (10 points on 5-for-9 shooting) was the only other Grandview player to have any offensive success, with the rest of the Greyhounds combining to miss 23 of 30 shots. They weren't much better at the line, with Grandview going 6-for-14.

"I missed a couple of easy shots, and we all missed free throws," Nielsen said. "Rebounding was a big thing, too. That's what killed us."

A clearly frustrated Grandview coach Roy Garcia stayed in the locker room long after his players had gone.

"Get a rebound and we win the game," he sighed. "That's one of our two mishaps all year long -- rebounding and 3-point shooting. We still had a chance to win, though. We didn't execute, but at the same time we played hard and still had a chance to win."