Black Hills squanders lead but beats Tumwater in OT thanks in large part to Hicks and Armin, 65-57
Never.
That’s when Black Hills High School last won a state trophy in boys basketball. The first two times the Wolves reached state, in 2011 and last year, they were dusted aside in the regional round.
Facing a Tumwater team that beat them twice in three previous meetings, the Wolves rushed out to an 11-point first half lead, only to see the Thunderbirds force six second-half lead changes and overtime.
Black Hills started the extra four minutes as strongly as it had the game and pulled away to a 65-57 victory on Friday afternoon at the Yakima Valley SunDome to assure themselves of either the fourth- or sixth-place trophy in Class 2A, pending a 9:30 a.m. game Saturday against second-seeded Toppenish.
“Our seniors deserve it,” said Black Hills coach Jeff Gallagher, who admitted losing an any-trophy-will-do mentality to focus on fourth place once Tumwater had been hurdled.
Two Wolves who didn’t particularly have their best games in Thursday night’s loss to Clarkston may have had their best against sixth-seeded Tumwater (20-6).
Senior Avery Armin, who fouled out after scoring a middling 11 points against the Bantams, bounced back to score 20 points and snag 10 rebounds.
“It feels pretty good to get a trophy. We worked so hard for that this season,” Armin said, yet admitted something folks around the cross-freeway rivalry between the Wolves and T-Birds seldom do. “We have friends on their team, too. It’s sad to see them go out, but it was fun.”
Even more impressive was 6-foot-7 junior post Justin Hicks, who shot 3-for-14 against Clarkston and grabbed only six rebounds. On Friday, he erupted for 21 points, 16 rebounds, two blocks and two steals against Tumwater’s own 6-7 post tandem of Damon Gaither and Ryan Otton.
“Playing against Tumwater is do or die. You win or you lose and we don’t want to lose to Tumwater,” he said. “We couldn’t let it happen a third time.”
Ethan Dillon led Tumwater with 21 points, while junior point guard Camden Oram did his best to keep the T-Birds in the game with 13 clutch points on 3-of-7 shooting from beyond the arc. Otton, in frequent relief of a foul-plagued Gaither, stepped up with seven points and 10 rebounds.
“Avery and Justin were huge, not just with their scoring, but hustle plays, rebounding, defensively,” Gallagher said. “Avery got switched onto some bigs and Justin onto some guards. They battled.”
Hicks made his intentions known early, connecting on a 3-pointer and a long 2 to fuel an early 9-4 Black Hills lead.
“Overnight, I was thinking we can’t make it to the semi-finals but we can beat Tumwater,” Hicks said. “All I wanted to do was attack them, play the best defense I can and put it all out on the floor. This could have been my last game with these seniors. I love all of them. I did not want to go home.”
With three minutes to go in the first half, the Wolves grabbed a 23-12 lead on a pair of free throws by Zach Crumley but Otton fueled a 9-4 T-Bird run that kept it close at intermission by scoring three times from close to the basket.
Ninth-seeded Black Hills (21-7) regained as much as a seven-point lead late in the third quarter, but Tumwater wouldn’t let the Wolves get away and caught them on a driving layup by Oram to take a 45-44 lead midway through the fourth quarter.
“I don’t know why we do that. It’s something we’ve done throughout the year,” said Gallagher. “Sometimes when we get a lead our shot selection isn’t always the best.”
The lead see-sawed until Hicks flashed to the basket to score on a feed from Crumley that broke a 48-48 tie. Two clutch free throws by Dillon with 30 seconds left forced the overtime.
Hicks immediately put Black Hills in front with a 3-pointer from the top of the key. The Wolves, who made 12-of-15 free throws in the overtime alone after being awarded only three in the entire loss to Clarkston just 16 hours before, never trailed or were tied.
Saturday’s Black Hills opponent, Toppenish, was knocked out of the hunt for the state championship by top-seeded Lynden but bounced back to knock off No. 5 White River, 71-57, on Friday to reach the fourth/sixth game.