Overtime again, but this time Olympia beats Puyallup, moves into two-way tie for first place in 4A SPSL

Both boys basketball games between Olympia High School and Puyallup followed a similar script this season. The home team, with a vocal crowd behind it, jumped out to a significant lead, only to see a determined visitor roar back, but fall short in overtime.

With 6-foot-9 sophomore Jackson Grant battling through a platoon of Vikings bigs to score a team-high 19 points, and junior guard Kai Johnson contributing 17 points and several timely assists, the host Bears prevailed, 60-55, after an extra period Friday night in Olympia.

All but one of the Bears (12-6) who got into the game scored, with point guard Ethan Gahm just short of double figures at nine points.

“We have a motto — ‘Sometimes me, sometimes you, but always us,’ ” Olympia coach John Kiley said. “What makes us good is people can’t focus on just one guy. We’ve got two good posts, we’ve got several good guards. That versatility makes us dangerous.”

Johnson credits the Bears’ instincts.

“When I drive middle and get stuck, my teammates are always open and calling for the ball,” he said. “We trust each other to make the shots.”

Puyallup (15-4) edged the Bears, 62-61, in overtime at home two weeks ago.

“The teams were in opposite roles,” Vikings coach Scott Campbell said. “The game at our place, we were up by nine two or three different times, but Olympia hung around and forced overtime. It was a close game, but we were in control the whole way. This was the opposite, we were chasing them the whole time.”

Though Cobi Campbell, who led the Vikings with 19 points and four assists in that first meeting, was hampered by injuries and scored only a single free throw Friday, senior guard Jaeden Ingram more than picked up the slack, nailing six 3-pointers on his way to a game-high 24 points. Kendall Munson, Puyallup’s 6-8 junior, added 11.

“That’s the best offensive performance I’ve seen Jaeden have,” Campbell said. “The rest of our guys did a real good job of playing through him. He made good decisions, good passes, good shots. He was awesome.”

Olympia coach John Kiley agreed.

“I admire him as a competitor,” Kiley said. “He’s a senior guard who’s done so much for their program. He wanted to win very badly, and he was very difficult to contain.”

The victory — combined with a favorable schedule that sees the Bears meet Class 4A SPSL cellar-dwellers Bellarmine Prep and Graham-Kapowsin in their final two league games — puts Olympia on track to either win a league title outright, or possibly face Curtis in a playoff for the championship.

Olympia, Puyallup and Curtis entered Friday night with three 4A SPSL losses each. The Bears split their two games with Curtis, which has road games at middle-of-the-pack Emerald Ridge and Rogers remaining.

Puyallup took an early 4-0 lead when 7-foot senior Zane Foster blocked shots on each of the Bears’ first three possessions. But, back-to-back layups by Grahm, one on a coast-to-coast drive, the other on a backdoor cut assisted by Zack Swanson, put Olympia in the lead.

The Bears defense then held the Vikings without a score for nearly six minutes. Olympia led 14-5 after the first period. The Bears didn’t trail again until the final four minutes of the game.

“We said, ‘Defense can win this game for us,’ ” Johnson said. “We focused on really getting up on them, and making sure they didn’t get easy buckets.”

Olympia took its biggest lead of the night, 40-29, with just under a minute to play in the third quarter on a fast break layup by Dylan Sawyer, but Jacob Holcomb answered with a 3-pointer before the period ended.

Ingram nailed three of his triples during the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, the last of which put Puyallup up for the first time since the opening period, 48-46, with 3:25 to play.

“I’m really proud of our guys for staying tough, hanging in there and staying together,” Campbell said. “That’s when a lot of teams fold, but I thought we showed a lot of resolve and responded.”

The next nine scores for both teams either tied the game or gave the shooter’s team the lead.

Gahm gave Olympia a 53-51 edge with 30 seconds remaining with a pair of free throws, but Ingram’s final basket, a driving leaner off the glass, tied it with 17 seconds to go.

With two fouls to give, Puyallup used both, chewing up all but five seconds of the Bears’ final possession in regulation. Johnson missed a foul line jumper at the buzzer.

Twenty seconds into overtime, Foster threw down the night’s first dunk on a pass from Ingram, but the Vikings didn’t score again.

Grant followed in a missed 3-pointer attempt by Gahm to tie it, and Johnson sank a pair of free throws with 2:15 to go, giving Olympia the lead for good, 57-55.

“Olympia made one more play,” Campbell said. “Up in Puyallup, we made one more play.”

The Bears gave Kiley some anxious moments, missing three of four free throws that could have iced the victory.

“That was tough. Back when I played, that was my job,” he said with a laugh. “Make the free throws so the coach isn’t sad. We got some stops, though, and came away with a pretty crazy victory.”

When Grant hammered home a two-handed slam to extend the Olympia lead to five points with 14 seconds left, Kiley could breathe easy. The crowd at Chick Rockey Gym did no such thing, letting loose with a deafening roar as their team took a step closer to a possible league title.

“That was as good a high school basketball game as I think you can find,” Kiley said.

TEAM STATISTICS

P – Shooting: 19 of 37 (51.3 percent). Free throws: 9 of 18 (50). Turnovers: 11.

O – Shooting: 23 of 40 (57.5 percent). Free throws: 14 of 18 (77.7). Turnovers: 12.

INDIVIDUAL SCORING

P – Cobi Campbell 1, Justin Haase 3, Jacob Holcomb 4, Luke Holcomb 3, Zane Foster 6, Kendall Munson 11, Jaeden Ingram 24.

O – Ethan Gahm 9, Alfredo Ramirez-Cortes 2, Dylan Sawyer 5, Kai Johnson 17, Jackson Grant 19, Zack Swanson 4, Andrew Lindsay 4.