Darius LuBom leads Kentwood past SPSL rival Curtis, 66-59 — advances to 4A state title game

Darius LuBom untucked his jersey and jumped in celebration. He and the Kentwood High School boys basketball team completed the second of two improbable victories in two days inside the Tacoma Dome.

And the Conquerors will play for the 4A state championship.

They did so behind LuBom’s 21 points, five rebounds, four assists and stellar defensive play in a 66-59 victory over 4A South Puget Sound League counterpart Curtis on Friday, advancing to the state title game six years after winning it all in 2010.

“Our confidence level was above the ceiling,” LuBom said, smiling. “Nothing was getting in our way.”

Then he calmed himself down.

“Don’t want to get too excited,” he said. “We didn’t come here to win two games.”

Meanwhile, Curtis coach Tim Kelly walked into his team’s locker room — minutes after helping senior guard Aushanti Potts-Woods get up off the Tacoma Dome court. He wrote down two numbers.

One was Kentwood’s shooting percentage. That was 56 percent (28 of 50).

The other was for Curtis: 37.9 percent (22 of 58).

And Curtis made 4 of 18 3-point attempts and 11 of 19 free throws, while allowing Kentwood to dominate in the paint.

“That’s not us,” Kelly said. “It’s really not us. I don’t know if we were tired. … I don’t know.

“It’s one of those things where we picked the wrong night to do that. They deserved to win, they played better than we did. It just hurts when it’s in the state semifinals.”

LuBom put Kentwood ahead 47-37 with 7:15 remaining in the third quarter when he pulled up for a 3-pointer. He finished 9 of 10 from the field.

But Curtis never went away. Nate Ward hit two 3-pointers to cut its deficit to 51-50 with about six minutes remaining in the fourth.

LuBom followed with a fadeaway jumper in the paint, then Rayvaughn Bolton and Davonte Sanchez each got layups to push the Conks’ lead to 62-54 with less than two minutes to play.

“All year we’ve kind of been overlooked by people,” said fourth-year Kentwood coach Blake Solomon, a 2005 graduate of the school. “These guys have such a belief that they are going to fight no matter what, no matter who it is. We are going to fight hard and play hard regardless.”

This was the 4A SPSL Northeast champ Kentwood vs. the SPSL South champ Curtis. With SPSL Northwest champ Federal Way in the late semifinal against Gonzaga Prep.

Curtis won the first meeting of these teams in the SPSL tournament, 66-63 on Feb. 6. But Kentwood led this one almost from start to finish.

Davonte Sanchez added 18 points and seven rebounds for Kentwood, which outscored Curtis 44-24 in the paint. Koby Huerta scored 13 points and Bolton had 10.

Potts-Woods and Glenn Jordan each scored 17 points for Curtis, but combined to shoot 14 of 36.

The SPSL has won 4A state titles four times since 2009. Actually, it’s been these three remaining teams who have continued to display the league’s strength — with Federal Way winning in 2009 and 2015, Kentwood winning in 2010 and Curtis in 2013.

“Our district is always hard to get through and the teams that get through are going to do well,” Kelly said. “That’s obviously been proven because one of us has to knock the other out.”

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 11:06 PM with the headline "Darius LuBom leads Kentwood past SPSL rival Curtis, 66-59 — advances to 4A state title game."