State 2B boys: Top-seeded Liberty can’t get offense going as Willapa Valley earns upset in quarterfinals
The top-seeded Liberty Lancers’ run for a championship ended with a series of clangs in the quarterfinals on Thursday night.
No Lancer player made more than half his shots, and as a team Liberty shot 29% in a 71-62 free-throw-filled loss to the 10th-seeded Willapa Valley Vikings in the State 2B Tournament at the Spokane Arena.
“We had looks. We had our normal looks that we get,” Liberty coach Mike Thacker said. “They shot it well. We didn’t.”
Junior Logan Walker scored a season-high 30 points for the Vikings, who shot 55% and made 21 of 33 free throws, most of which came in the fourth quarter as the Lancers slowed the pace and attacked the basket hoping to avoid their first loss of the season.
The Lancers made 21 of 27 free-throw attempts, including a 16-of-18 night at the line for sophomore Tayshawn Colvin.
But Colvin made just 4 of 15 field-goal attempts while finishing with 24 points, a team high. Jacob Holling, his senior teammate, had only two points at halftime – when the Vikings led 30-28 – and finished 3 of 14 from the field, including just 1 of 9 beyond the 3-point arc.
Limiting Colvin and Holling was key for the Vikings, who improved to 21-7 and advanced to play fifth-seeded Life Christian Academy (22-3) – a team that beat Willapa Valley twice this season – in the semifinals on Friday.
“The game plan going in was to take (Holling) and (Colvin) out. They’re not gonna beat us,” Vikings coach Jay Pearson said, “and to try to keep (junior Van Ricker) off the boards, and that was easier said than done.”
The Lancers (24-1) outrebounded the Vikings by 12 and had a whopping 29 offensive rebounds, which helped Liberty attempt 29 more shots than Willapa Valley. But just 20 of their 69 attempts went in – including just one 3-pointer in 15 tries – and the Lancers struggled to string together more than one significant scoring run.
Than run was an 8-2 start to the second half to give the Lancers a 36-32 lead, their largest of the game.
Willapa Valley retook the lead, 45-42, heading into the fourth quarter, and Ricker picked up his third and fourth fouls before 30 seconds elapsed.
Ricker fouled out with 4:37 remaining and the Lancers trailing 54-46. He finished with 11 points and eight rebounds.
The Vikings flirted with foul trouble and at that point had three starters carrying four fouls apiece. But just one of them – senior Carter Pearson – fouled out, and Walker just kept hitting his free throws (12 of 16).
The 6-foot-3 guard shot 8 of 15 from the field and had 10 rebounds and two assists. But to Thacker, Walker’s play wasn’t the primary obstacle for the Lancers.
“It wasn’t so much stopping him,” Thacker said. “It was the fact that we couldn’t get anything going.”
The Vikings’ run to the semifinals comes during an inconsistent season marred by injuries to key players. Walker missed multiple weeks with a broken collarbone, and 6-foot-5 junior center Beau Buchanan – who had four points, four rebounds and three blocks Thursday – missed significant time after emergency kidney surgery.
They lost four of seven from Jan. 31 to Feb. 21, culminating in a 69-54 loss to Onalaska in districts during which they just weren’t coming together, coach Pearson said.
But they won two games to get to state, and then beat Onalaska 66-47 on Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals.
“I think we just had enough time playing together and caught fire at the right time,” Pearson said.