Chief Leschi’s energy, depth has them one win away from the 2B state tournament
In Chief Leschi’s gymnasium, a placard hangs over the bleachers with the team’s guiding mantra: We over Me.
It’s a fitting one, given the Warriors’ roster makeup. Four starters average 11 or more points. Another group of sophomores, primarily those in Chief Leschi’s second unit, average between five and seven. They’re undersized, admittedly, but such depth keeps the engine humming at all times.
“I have a bench that would start for most teams in our league,” coach Scott Halasz said. His top eight players are all three-level scorers, he says. If able to navigate around opposing bigs, each can drive to the basket. They can pull up and drain shots from mid-range, if a lane is blocked. And they can all shoot from three, which discourages opponents from double-teaming just about anyone.
Now, the Warriors are just one win away from the team’s first 2B state championship berth in five years.
“It’s probably the chemistry,” Fred Lewis told The News Tribune. He’s a junior wing, averaging 15 points, eight rebounds, four assists, and three steals in 18 games for Chief Leschi this season.
“And how much work we’ve put in in the offseason. The games weren’t easy, I wouldn’t say.”
It’s not that the Warriors (15-3, 9-2 2B Pacific) are prone to off-nights as a unit. Actually, it’s the opposite. Any of Chief Leschi’s top eight players can explode for a big night. It’s not a matter of whether someone can pack the stat sheet, but instead who.
Justin James, Chief Leschi’s six-foot-one wing, averages 15 and adds five rebounds, five steals, and three assists. Gaston Dillon adds 11 points, three rebounds, and three assists. And Brendon Brown, fresh off of a 24-point performance on Saturday, averages 12 with six rebounds.
“One of the beautiful things about Justin is he’s actually averaging five steals a game. He’s just a menace,” Halasz said. “We’ve had probably eight different nights with 20-point scorers, all different guys. Any of them could go off at any time.”
They’re scrappy on defense, and love to push the ball in transition. That’s what translates to high scoring nights – over 70 points a game, on average.
Once the team learned to depend on each other – to pass up a good shot for a great one – Chief Leschi asserted itself as a 2B state title contender.
Lewis was a “shoo-in leader” upon joining the team in 2021. He fit right into the team’s style, Halasz said. James played basketball with many of Chief Leschi’s roster in middle school, and built a rapport with today’s sophomore group. Across three seasons in middle school, many of those Warriors never lost a game.
“I try to be a role model to the younger community,” James said. “They look up to me like a big brother.”
Each of Chief Leschi’s three losses included first-quarter deficits that proved unreachable, but their ability to adjust and maintain high-energy play keeps them in any game. They “play the game and not the scoreboard,” Halasz said. That’s his favorite quote to use when describing his team, which takes pride in their full-court pressure style.
Sometimes, the score isn’t in mind when the Warriors are locked on their opponent. Look to Saturday’s 66-64 victory over Rainier in the 2B district tournament’s opening round as an example: In Chief Leschi’s film room on Monday, Lewis recapped what he thought was a nine-point win.
“No, we won by (more than two),” Lewis insisted. James looked over, like he knew something Lewis didn’t.
Lewis turned to Halasz. “It was only two?”
“Should’ve been more than two,” the coach admitted with a chuckle. “We’re notorious. We just go down early, dig ourselves a whole, storm back, and go up 12. That’s a 30-point run. … The runs come for us. We’re just streaky. We create chaos and once it starts rolling, it’s like energy, and we’re hard to stop. And that’s what happened. We switched things up, changed some things, and then made a run and we took the lead before halftime.”
“It should’ve been like nine,” Lewis concluded. “We always start off slow. We always get in our heads (in the first quarter). Second quarter, third quarter, we come out and we’re just energetic.”
If not for missed free throws in the waning minutes and inconsequential three-pointers from Rainier that cut the deficit, the Warriors’ first-round win could have ended in double-digit fashion. That’s a relatively normal expectation for the group: each of their first six regular-season wins were by double-digits, and on Jan. 19, Chief Leschi exploded for an 80-19 win over Taholah.
“It’s just fighting from within,” Lewis said. “You have to want it. You can’t just expect it to come to you. In the first quarter, we were playing not to lose. We weren’t playing to win.”
“The timeouts helped,” James added. “Coach came over, and told us what we were doing wrong.”
The area’s only 2B team could get even better in 2023. Lewis and James, Chief Leschi’s top scorers, are juniors. So are Dillon and Brown. Already with a talent-proven roster, they’ll have another year together for a state title run, if the roster holds.
“I told them the time is now,” Halasz said. “Since (our) last state run, they were the little kids that were in the stands. They were there watching their big cousins and brothers and just dreamed of now, and now we’re here. We’re in the moment right now.”
By “now,” Halasz means Wednesday, when his team tips off against Napavine at 7:30 p.m. State tournament qualification is on the line.
With a loss to the Tigers, Chief Leschi still has a pathway to state, though the ice gets much thinner. They’d have to win twice following a loss to grab one of the 2B Pacific’s six state tournament allocations.
“We’re going to have to practice on defense for the six-foot-six, three-hundred pound center,” James said with a laugh in reference to Napavine’s Keith Olson. A senior and three-star football recruit, Olson committed to play offensive tackle for the University of Utah last month.
“That’ll be a tough one,” Lewis added. “But I feel like we can pull it out.”
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
