District 6 basketball: Nash Dunham provides spark, Mead boys survive early scare to rout Kamiakin 82-60

Things got off to an inauspicious start for the Mead boys basketball team on Friday. Delayed a day to play their first postseason game due to the weather, the Panthers found themselves in a huge hole after a scorching start by their visitors from Kamiakin.

But after the horn signaling the end of the first quarter, the hot hand transferred unequivocally to the hosts – and the Panthers showed off their defensive chops in what turned out to be a rout.

Nash Dunham hit six 3-pointers and scored 26 points, Bryce Lynd had 19 points and Karson Maze added 18, and the third-seeded Panthers (17-4) ran away from the sixth-seeded Braves (12-10) 82-60 in a District 6 4A first-round game Friday.

Rogelio Pruneda led Kamiakin with 18 points and Nicholas Malisani added 15.

Mead travels to second-seeded Richland (21-0), the Mid-Columbia Conference champion and ranked No. 2 in the state’s RPI, for a semifinal on Saturday. Kamiakin hosts Lewis and Clark in a loser-out.

Down by nine points after the first quarter, Mead showed no panic.

“There was no magic pill, no magic formula,” Mead coach Luke Jordan said. “Just trust the scouting report, trust your teammates – someone will be there. And things took care of themselves.”

“We knew the law of averages shows that they’re not going to shoot that way the whole time,” Dunham said of the Braves. “We tightened up. We got beat (in the first quarter), we weren’t help side for a lot of times. We fixed that, took away the shooters, and it all went well from there.”

Despite a long bus ride through snowy conditions, Kamiakin seemingly couldn’t miss in the first quarter, hitting five 3-pointers en route to a 27-18 lead .

“They shot 10 for 12, and they spaced us out well,” Jordan said. “We were falling asleep backside. There was no help side, but they shot 10 for 12, and that was kind of the message after the first quarter. It was, ‘Hey, just weather this storm.’ ”

“The message was, ‘Just keep playing as a team and keep your heads in it,’ ” Lynd said. “Just kind of fly around better on defense.”

Dunham started the comeback. He hit a 3-pointer to start the second quarter, then added a layup and another 3-pointer to get the Panthers within 32-28. Lynd took a steal the length of the floor to finally give Mead its first lead of the game at 33-32 with 1:20 left in the half.

“Mt. Spokane did a really good job on me last week, and it grounded me a little bit,” Dunham said. “But postseason, I wasn’t gonna let that happen again. Once I saw one drop, the confidence was through the roof, and I was ready for all of them to drop.”

“It was a big momentum shifter, for sure,” Lynd said of Dunham’s 3-pointers. “Just to see them get their shots to go through, a little momentum was huge for our team.”

“When a team is shooting 85% from the field against you, it’s nice to see your ball going in the hole a few times,” Jordan said. “Get a couple of stops and just see that pendulum swing. And once we knew we started getting momentum, all we had to do was just kind of keep that traction and keep our foot on the gas.”

Maze added a 3-pointer, Lynd hit a pair at the line and Mead led 38-32 at halftime. The Panthers outscored the Braves 20-5 in the quarter.

“We feel like we’ve prepared a lot for these MCC opponents,” Jordan said. “We’ve watched a lot of film. We’ve come up with some pretty in-depth scouting reports. We knew what we needed to do against Kamiakin. We knew who was likely going to be doing what, and they just hit a barrage in the first quarter. … We just needed to get out and execute offensively the way that we know we can.”

Mead’s good fortune continued in the third quarter. A 7-2 run, sparked by Maze’s 3-pointer, pushed the lead to double digits. Dunham’s back-to-back 3-pointers made it 55-41 with 2:18 left in the period. Kamiakin asked for a timeout, but Maze and Dunham hit consecutive 3-pointers after the break and Mead led 63-45 entering the fourth.

Maze hit a 3-pointer on the first possession of the fourth quarter to push the lead past 20.

It doesn’t get any easier for Mead, facing Richland on the road on a quick turnaround.

“We knew that playing Richland was a real possibility in the second game,” Jordan said. “Would I like to have a practice? Yes. But this time of year you’ve got to be used to playing against teams that maybe you don’t have as much scouted. … Sometimes you’ve got to go out and play.”