Black Hills defeats Toppenish to take fourth at 2A state tournament, the program’s first-ever placing
Four games in as many days isn’t an easy task for a basketball team. Make the opposition the best a team’s level has to offer and the task is more difficult.
The Black Hills High School boys weathered cramped hotel rooms and hours of school bus travel to win three of those four games and claim fourth place in the 2A state tournament at the Yakima Valley SunDome with a 63-58 victory over Toppenish, located just 21 miles away, on Saturday morning.
“We had a lot of obstacles to overcome, sharing a bed with a teammate, one bus to transport 30 people. We’re all friends and family, so it’s not a big deal, but it is something we had to overcome,” said Wolves senior guard Zach Crumley.
A theme of the Wolves’ season had been to claim one of the top eight spots in state tournament seeding to avoid a difficult regional round game and the extra night of play at the Dome. They got the ninth seed, but fortunately saw their regional game set for Tumwater’s gym, where they defeated Woodland.
Opening play in Yakima on Wednesday, the Wolves (22-7) edged Mountlake Terrace, 52-50, but lost their quarterfinal matchup to Clarkston. An overtime win over rival Tumwater to even that season series at 2-2 earned Black Hills a shot at a trophy.
They grabbed the bigger one available in the four or six placing game.
“It feels amazing,” said Black Hills coach Jeff Gallagher. “I’ve known our nine seniors since they were in fourth grade.”
Crumley, who nailed a couple of threes at key moments and had three assists, agreed but still felt the weight of missed opportunity.
“It’s great. It’s little underwhelming because we had higher expectations coming in,” he said. “But, fourth place ain’t bad. This is a brotherhood. We’ve been playing on the same (AAU) teams for 10 years, dreaming about this in hotel rooms in other states.”
Senior guard Avery Armin played about as well offensively as he can, scoring 27 points on 10-of-21 shooting and dishing off three assists to figure in most of the Wolves’ points. Junior post Justin Hicks, who had a dominant night against Tumwater turned in a quieter outing against the Wildcats, but finished with 13 points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots.
Weston Ainsworth also reached double figures for Black Hills with 12 points.
“It’s a confidence thing with Avery,” Gallagher said. “He put in all the work and it paid off.”
“I wanted to end my senior year great, leave it all on the court,” said Armin. “We all did. We played a pretty great game.”
The Wolves took an early 6-3 lead on three-point baskets by Armin and Ainsworth before Toppenish guard Isaac Perez forced Gallagher to do something he hates to do – call time out in the face of an opponent’s run.
After the Wildcats (23-4) tied the score at 6-6 on a Manuel Felan free throw three minutes into the game, Perez stripped Wolves’ ballhandlers three times in 36 seconds, twice for layups, once drawing a foul and making one of two free throws.
“We knew their speed would give us trouble,” Gallagher said. “(Assistant) coach (Shane) Dover stayed up all night watching them on film. I’m really anti-calling-time out, as our coaches can tell you, but we needed to settle down.”
Toppenish, the second-seeded team in the tournament, stretched its lead to 23-17 on a second quarter three by Joshua Perez. Then, Armin and Ainsworth took over, scoring all of Black Hills’ points in a half-ending 15-7 run that allowed the Wolves to nose ahead at intermission, 32-30.
The Wildcats weren’t done, though, and grabbed a seven-point lead, 48-41, with two minutes left in the third quarter. Again, Armin stepped up, scoring on two drives and a three from the left wing to tie the score entering the final period.
Gallagher thought fatigue might have briefly reared its head during the third quarter.
“Usually, the barometer is if I’m feeling tired, the kids are probably tired. We looked it in the third quarter. Our legs were a little bit heavy,” he said.
The lead would change hands six times in the fourth quarter, until Ainsworth hit a driving layup 90 seconds from the end to give Black Hills a 60-58 advantage. All that remained were a few defensive stops and a single free throw each by Armin, Degan Hurley – who finished with a game-high six assists – and Hicks.
“We defended the three-point line a lot better in the fourth quarter, as opposed to the third (when the Wildcats hit four of their five treys),” Gallagher said.
Armin, with no more high school games to look ahead to is already anticipating looking back.
“This is going to be a great memory,” he said.
This story was originally published March 7, 2020 at 6:44 PM.