Chiefs finish fifth at 4A state tournament

TACOMA — Tied 43-43 against Bellarmine Prep with enough time for one shot, Jamie Loera streaked across the court, caught the inbounds pass, spun and shot.

Moses Lake ran the same play against Lynnwood in December to free Loera for a game-tying 3-pointer to force overtime. That time the ball went in.

This time — just short off the front of the rim.

The Lions pulled away late in the extra session and won 51-47. The Chiefs finished the Class 4A state tournament 1-2 and placed fifth for the third time in four seasons.

“We’ll be able to look back and we’ll have a different perspective than how our emotions are right now,” head coach Matt Strophy said. “The fact that we get to play on Saturday all seven trips to the state tournament has to be meaningful to these girls and it will be eventually when they get over the sting of today’s actual loss so it’s hard coming off a loss, but both of us are doing it so it’s fair, it’s even and I thought we rose to the occasion.

“I thought we played well just like last night we played well. It’s not like we laid an egg.”

After Central Valley was upset in the quarterfinals, Moses Lake fell just short of a possible run to a state championship in the newly wide open field.

Moses Lake’s state semifinal game against Glacier Peak came down to the final possession. Jessica Olson missed the front end of a 1-and-1 free throw opportunity that could have cut the Grizzlies’ lead to two points and time ran out. Glacier Peak advanced to the state championship game 55-51, losing to Kentridge Saturday night 60-46.

It was a moment that marred an otherwise outstanding last trip to Tacoma for the senior captain. Olson shot a perfect 7-of-7 from the field in the quarterfinals against Camas for a game-high 21 points and totaled 13 points and seven rebounds in the semifinals against Glacier Peak.

More, it was Olson who helped erase a five-point deficit in the final minute against Bellarmine Prep. Olson drilled a 3-pointer before Abby Rathbun scored on an offensive rebound to tie the game.

“Us seniors have nothing more so just give it your all and see what shots fall and we just had our adrenaline going and I think that helped us get into overtime,” Olson said.

Loera, who played a 99 out of a possible 100 minutes over the three games at state, had a game-tying three-pointer at the end of overtime fall short of the rim. Bellarmine point guard Jenny Hagle split a pair of free throws to end the hope of double overtime.

Seeing many double teams in every game, Loera was turned into a volume shooter, but still affected the game in a variety of ways, The junior point guard capped her season with 13 points, nine rebounds, six assists, six steals, three blocks and one half-court shot she banked in at the end of the first quarter.

Moses Lake will undoubtedly have state tournament expectations next season with a core returning group of Loera, Rathbun, Morgan Yamane, Ellie Mayo and Kiera McPartland.

But the five graduating seniors will certainly be missed.

“The four that are Moses Lake kids that grew up here born and bred with Taylor Stevens, Maggie Strom, Alexya Sandmann, Jessica Olson, this is going to hit them hard because they’ve been Moses Lake Chiefs girls basketball players since first grade,” Strophy said. “10, 11, 12 years of this and now they’re done, now it’s over. But I couldn’t be more proud of a group of kids that have stuck together and worked their way through and I think that’s what makes us so good over the last number of years is because we’ve got that core group of kids with each class that have stuck together.”

Score by quarters

ML — 10 10 10 13 4 47

BP — 9 15 9 10 8 51

Box score

ML — Loera 13, Rathbun 12, Olson 7, Sandmann 6, Mayo 3, Strom 3, Yamane 3

Score by quarters

ML — 16 15 11 9 51

GP — 17 17 10 11 55

Box score

ML — Loera 14, Rathbun 13, Olson 13, Yamane 6, Mayo 3, Charity Talo 2