Broncos turn back Crusaders

SPOKANE - Dylan Hartz scored 18 points, and Connor O'Neill and Tyler Fredrickson added 9 each to lead Lind-Ritzville/Sprague (LRS) to a 49-46 first round win over Northwest Christian at the 2B Boys State Basketball Tournament in Spokane Thursday.

"The game was a little closer than we would've liked, but we pretty much expected it to be that way," coach Dustan Arlt said. "We've face Northwest Christian four times this year. They beat us in an overtime game at the district tournament and that was kind of a wakeup call for us, so we knew we were in for a tough game today."

The game got off to a slow start offensively as the Broncos led 9-6 at the end of the first quarter. But the action heated up in the second 8 minutes of play as LRS went on an 18-16 run to go up 27-22 at the break.

The Crusaders scored the first bucket of the second half to get within 3 points, 27-24, and then took the lead 34-32 with 2 minutes left in the third quarter. The Broncos answered the call with back-to-back buckets from beyond the arc by Hartz to go back up 38-34. A free throw by Northwest Christian's Nick Kiourkas closed the gap to 38-34 as the quarter came to an end.

Kiourkas drilled the first basket of the fourth quarter to make it 38-37 LRS.

Hartz had a chance to give the Broncos a bit of breathing room as he was fouled on a 3-point attempt and sent to the charity stripe, but he missed all three free throws.

The teams traded scores over the next few minutes to knot the game 44 all. Hartz was able to redeem himself for the missed free throws by sinking a 3-pointer with 2 minutes to go to put LRS up 47-44. With 51 ticks left on the clock and trailing by 3 points, the Crusaders were forced to foul to conserve time.

Hartz was sent to the line once more with a chance to ice the game, but missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Northwest Christian got the rebound and pushed the ball up court, and with 21 second to go, Austin Friedly hit a jump shot to give the Crusaders hope, 47-46.

A foul by Jonathon Morris sent O'Neill to the line with 17 seconds left in the game. He sank both ends of a 1-and-1 to put the Broncos up 49-46. Northwest Christian called a time out to regroup and call a play they hoped would tie the game and send it to overtime. But tough defense by LRS forced a desperate 3-point attempt by Morris that fell short of its mark, and the Broncos escaped with the win.

"The 3-point bucket by Dylan to give us the late lead was huge," Arlt said. "It was nice to see him step up with confidence and drain the shot after missing four free throws, which is very uncharacteristic for Dylan. The two free throws by Connor were clutch."

Although the game wasn't decided until the waning seconds, Arlt said he was confident his guys were going to hang on to win it.

"A bunch of these kids were on the state championship football team this year, so they are used to this kind of pressure," he said. "We came here ready to play ... nothing was going to faze us ... and now we're moving on."

The Broncos face St. George, who got by Morton-White Pass 73-69 in overtime, in a second round match up tonight at 5:30.