Whitten hits six 3-pointers, No. 1 Curtis tops No. 8 Richland in 4A state regionals
Three consecutive wins.
That’s what Curtis High School needs to repeat as Class 4A state champions in the Tacoma Dome next week.
The top-seeded Vikings opened their state run Friday night with a convincing win in the regional round, leading by as many as 22 in the second half in an eventual 64-55 victory over No. 8 seed Richland at Tacoma Community College.
The win sends the Vikings (25-3) straight to Thursday’s quarterfinals with three more victories needed to lift the 4A trophy again.
“When it’s game time, we’ve got to be ready,” Curtis guard Devin Whitten said. “We’re going to practice hard next week, so we’re going to be prepared.”
The Vikings have secured impressive wins on the road back to the Tacoma Dome this season.
They’ve lost only one game to an in-state team this winter — in a 4A SPSL contest in January against an Olympia program that is the No. 3 seed in the 4A state bracket, and also headed directly to the quarterfinals following a double-digit win over No. 6 Skyline on Friday night.
Since that loss, Curtis has posted a 13-game winning streak, including picking up a pair of victories against Olympia in both the 4A SPSL Tournament and 4A West Central/Southwest district championship games.
Against Richland, the Vikings again collected a signature win against one of the state’s top 4A programs.
The two teams exchanged the lead early in Friday night’s contest, but Curtis took a 12-10 lead on a Cinque Maxwell basket late in the first quarter that was part of a 13-0 run, and never trailed again.
Curtis led by as many as 12 in the second quarter on the last of Whitten’s four first-half 3-pointers with 4:37 left, but Richland closed on a 10-0 run to cut the lead to 26-24 at the break.
“In the second half we knew that we needed to come with energy,” Whitten said. “We were only up two, so we knew we had to run away with it. We knew we could, so we just had to come ready out of the half.”
The Vikings opened the third quarter on a 16-0 run capped by another Whitten 3-pointer to make it 42-24. Whitten finished with six 3-pointers in the contest.
”We were all pushing the ball and finding each other,” Whitten said. “I feel like that really helped a lot. I was getting to my spots and my teammates were finding me. So, I got good shots, good looks and they were falling today.”
Richland didn’t score again until the 2:51 mark in the third quarter on a free throw following a technical foul, and didn’t connect on a shot from the floor until a Landen Northrop 3-pointer with 1:49 to play in the quarter.
Curtis kept the lead out of reach the rest of the way. The Bombers rallied late in the fourth, outscoring the Vikings, 25-12, in the final quarter, but never cut the lead back below the final nine-point margin.
Still, Vikings coach Tim Kelly emphasized playing out each possession and keeping focus throughout the contest.
“When everybody moves the ball and then moves themselves and they play for each other — we’re good when we do that,” he said. “We’ve got to do it for an extended period of time.”
Whitten scored a game-high 20 points for the Vikings, while Zoom Diallo had 19 and Maxwell added 10. Curtis also combined for 21 takeaways as a team, led by forward Xavier Ahrens, who had five.
Northrop led the Bombers with 17 points, while Jase Vopalensky had 15 and Lucas Westerfield added 14.
Richland (21-4) also advances to the Tacoma Dome, and will play a loser-out game — against the winner of Saturday afternoon’s regionals contest between No. 16 Sumner and No. 9 Union — in the opening round at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
This was only the second in-state loss for the Bombers — who completed an undefeated 4A/3A Mid-Columbia Conference championship earlier this month — this season.
Richland carried an 18-game winning streak into the District 8 tournament before losing to Chiawana — the No. 13 seed in 4A — in the district semifinals. The Bombers rallied with wins over Hanford and Kamiakin in the tournament to reach Friday night’s regionals meeting with Curtis.
This story was originally published February 24, 2023 at 11:47 PM.
