Despite losing its final two games at the Tri-District tournament, the Cascade Christian Cougars girls basketball team still is in the hunt for a berth in the Class 1A state tournament.

The Cougars suffered their second loss in a row, falling 39-33 against Kings High School on Saturday afternoon at Mountlake Terrace High School. Cascade Christian head coach Bryan Peterson said Kings was a formidable opponent.

“Kings is a tough team. When you get to this point of the season every where you turn are going to be really good teams,” he said. “We have to understand how to take care of the basketball. We have to improve on that.”

Cougars junior Kaycee Creech scored a team-high 12 points in the loss. The Cougars will face Tenino in a winner-to-state, loser-out game in the state regional round this Saturday at WF West High School in Chehalis. The Cougars are the No. 4 seed out of its Tri-District. Tenino is the No. 2 seed out of the Southwest Division.

“The downside is that we have lost two games in a row to two pretty good teams (Lynden Christian and Kings). Now we have one week to prepare for one opponent (Tenino). We know what is on the table. We’re going to do a great job preparing for that. We’re going to leave everything on the floor.”

One year ago the Cougars were one game away from reaching the Class 1A state tournament. Peterson said his team doesn’t want history to repeat itself this year.

“Last year we got down to the regional round and we needed to win two games to make it the round of final eight teams and we didn’t make it,” he said. “I think it has been in the girls mind all along that we want to get further than we did last year. We want to make it to the final eight teams in the first week of March.”