Settling for second

Medical Lake's second half secures state championship trophy

YAKIMA — As the Quincy boys basketball team left the locker room with heads hung low, they were greeted with a roar from their fans as if they won the state championship. Maybe they deserved the ovation and maybe they deserved to win the state title, but in the end, it was Medical Lake who came out the victor.

It wasn't the year of the Jackrabbit, despite making its first appearance in the championship game in the history of the school. This time, it was the year of the Cardinals.

Medical Lake captured its first boys basketball state title after coming from behind to beat Quincy 44-41 in the 2A championship game Saturday night at the Yakima SunDome. For the Jacks, it was the highest they had finished in school history.

"In a couple days I will look back at it and think, that is pretty dang good," said Dustin Kniep about Quincy's second-place finish.

It was Kniep who controlled the Jacks' destiny in the final with 8.9 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Chris Pontarolo-Maag drove the length of the court, cut to the middle of the paint and dished to Kniep, who was standing alone behind the 3-point line.

The shot hit the far side of the rim and fell into the hands of Medical Lake's Tim Morris as the buzzer sounded.

"It felt good and I thought it was in, but it didn't fall," Kniep said.

Medical Lake's head coach Arnold Brown ran the floor like Jim Valvano after North Carolina State won the NCAA championship in 1983. Meanwhile, Quincy, who gave up a 16-point lead in the third quarter, was left shaking their heads, coming up short of their tournament goal.

Not something Quincy head coach Wade Petersen or his team expected after leading 25-14 at halftime.

"I told the kids in the locker room, you play these big huge games and somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose," Petersen said. "Somebody is going to be jubilant and happy and somebody is going to be sad."

Matt Medina, who was named to the tournament first team, finished the game with 21 points to lead all scorers, including 5-for-9 from behind the arc. Medina finished the tournament averaging 17.3 points per game to help lead the Jacks to the championship game. Kniep finished with four points and Smokey Baughman had six points and six rebounds, five of which were offensive.

Medical Lake's Steven Wesley was also named to the first team after scoring 12 points against the Jacks, eight of which came in the second half.

The Cardinals opened the championship game on a 7-2 run, then watched the Jacks finish with a 10-1 run to trail 12-8 after the first quarter.

Quincy kept rolling in the second after Medina hit a 3-pointer to push the lead to 15-10 and Kniep followed with a fastbreak layup off a Baughman steal. Alex King ran the lead to double digits after scoring off an offensive rebound.

Gabe Lopez drove hard down the baseline for a layup before the break to send Quincy into the locker room with a 25-14 lead.

The Jacks were able to capitalize on holding the Cardinals to 31.6 percent shooting in the first two quarters and scored nine points off turnovers to help build the lead. But, it was Medina's three 3-pointers that helped give Quincy the edge at the break.

"The kid scores points, but he does a lot of other things," Petersen said about his leading scorer. "He rebounds well for his size and a real unselfish player. He doesn't care about his stats, just cares about winning."

Medina opened the third with his fourth 3-pointer of the game and followed with two free throws to hand the Jacks its biggest lead of the game at 30-14. Then Medical Lake took over.

Tanner Tareski hit consecutive 3-pointers to cut the lead to 30-20, then hit his final 3 pointer of the game with 1:59 left in the third to bring the Cardinals within 37-28. Medina missed consecutive shots and Wesley hit a jumper from the baseline to end the quarter trailing 37-30.

In the fourth, Wesley gave Medical Lake its second lead of the game at 38-37 and Andy Davis continued the run with a basket. The Cardinals built a five-point lead in the fourth before Baughman hit a layup and Maag hit consecutive free throws to pull within 24-41 with 1:50 remaining in the game.

Davis hit two free-throws with 8.9 seconds left and Quincy took a timeout before Maag drove the length of the court to find Kniep in the corner for the 3-point attempt.

"I was hoping to take it, they were covering me and the play was going to me, but Dustin was wide open," Medina said.

Quincy finished the tournament with the best defense, holding teams to 34.8 points per game and set a new tournament record by holding Grandview to 23 points in the semifinal game on Friday.

"I told them to hold their heads high," Petersen said. "This is the highest we have finished in the history of our school, but we didn't want to settle for anything higher than first."