And suddenly, it was over.
One disastrous eight-minute quarter proved to be the end of the Lynden boys basketball team’s reign as the Lions lost to Prosser, 64-50, in the Class 2A state quarterfinals Thursday afternoon in the Yakima SunDome.
Not only did the loss break Lynden’s record streak of three straight state championships but guarantees that the Lions won’t place in the top three for only the second time in the last 12 state tournaments.
The Lions’ season is not over, however, and they have a chance to bring home the 42nd trophy in school history when they play Columbia River on Friday at 9 a.m. in a loser-out consolation game. Should they win, they would play for fourth or sixth place on Saturday morning.
“It hurts knowing this was my last shot,” said Lynden senior Jack Stapleton, who was a part of the past two state championship teams. “But we’re still going to play our hardest to win a trophy.”
In a way, it wasn’t fair to put the burden of history on this group of Lions, who only returned two seniors and were mostly last year’s JV team. Yet they shocked everyone by using tough defense and strong rebounding to go undefeated during the regular season and earn the top seed coming into the tournament.
But on Thursday, they met a team that was just as big and could play just as good defense.
“Give credit to Prosser,” said Lynden coach Brian Roper, whose team fell to 25-2 on the season. “We knew they’d be a tough matchup and they proved to be. They beat us at our own game.”
For three of the quarters the teams battled evenly, but not in the third quarter. Prosser continued to hit the boards — the Mustangs would finish with 19 offensive rebounds — while Lynden couldn’t hit anything. When the buzzer finally went off to end the period, the Lions had been outscored, 19-5.
“We started the third quarter so poorly it seemed like we were playing catch-up the whole second half,” said Roper of the 14-point deficit.
So the Lions were forced to put up 3-pointers — 15 of them in the second half — and all those 3-point shots turned into 0 points as they missed all 15 after making five of nine in the first half.
Lynden managed to close the gap to eight with a chance to cut it to five early in the fourth quarter, but two straight turnovers turned into Mustang points and Lynden would never get any closer. The Lions ended up shooting 25 percent from the field in the second half and committing 20 turnovers in the game.
“You can’t win at this level with 20 turnovers,” said Roper.
Senior Brant Heppner led Lynden with 28 points and 11 rebounds, but no other Lion reached double figures. Sophomore Gordy Bedlington had 8 points and Stapleton had 6 points to go with 5 rebounds.
“It felt like they had the edge … rebounding, hustle,” said Stapleton. “The second half, they definitely had the edge.”
But the senior tried to keep it all in perspective.
“You know it wasn’t guaranteed,” he said of another state title. “It’s how it relates to life. Sometimes it doesn’t work out your way.”
Now, the Lions have to reset their goal and focus on Columbia River, the 11th seed that upset Lakewood on Wednesday and lost to Selah in Thursday’s quarterfinal.
“You can learn a lot about a team on Day 2 in the losers’ bracket,” said Roper. “Winning state is hard. We’ve had a great season, and we hope it gets to Saturday.”
Junior Spencer Adams earned the team’s sportsmanship medallion for the game.
Prosser 64, Lynden 50
Prosser 18 12 19 15—64
Lynden 20 11 5 14—50
Prosser: Dalin Cortes 6, Koby McClure 22, Noah Medrano, Landon Bailey 19, Killian Phillips 7, Tyler Groeneveld, Autry Hoefer, Adrian Rivera, Trent Russell 8, Branden Clarke, Daniel Diaz Garcia.
Lynden: Jayden Navarre, Gordy Bedlington 8, Brody Price, Malachi Bowman, Malachi Koenen 3, Jack Stapleton 6, Ty Jorgenson 5, Brant Heppner 28, Spencer Adams.
CLASS 2A BOYS STATE TOURNAMENT
At Yakima SunDome
Wednesday, March 5
Columbia River 60, Lakewood 56 (loser out)
Prosser 88, Foster 66 (loser out)
Franklin Pierce 59, West Valley (Spokane) 50 (loser out)
Mark Morris 69, Sequim 59 (loser out)
Thursday, March 6
Selah 74, Columbia River 49
Prosser 64, Lynden 50
Bremerton 57, Franklin Pierce 42
R.A. Long 50, Mark Morris 48
Friday, March 7
#1 Lynden (25-2) vs. #11 Columbia River (20-6), 9 a.m. (loser out)
#12 Franklin Pierce (21-5) vs. #8 Mark Morris (21-6), 10:30 a.m. (loser out)
#5 Selah (21-4) vs. #10 Prosser (24-7), 3:45 p.m.
#3 Bremerton (20-5) vs. #2 R.A. Long (24-1), 5:30 p.m.
Saturday, March 8
Consolation game, 8 a.m. (winner fourth, loser sixth)
Consolation final, 11:15 a.m. (winner third, loser fifth)
Championship game, 9 p.m. (winner first, loser second)
