Game recaps, highlights from the semifinals, consolation games of the 4A and 3A state basketball tournaments
Between the Class 4A and 3A boys and girls state tournaments, 60 high school basketball games will be played in the Tacoma Dome this weekend. The News Tribune will be at all of them, providing game recaps, highlights, interviews, stats and more.
Follow along for live updates from Friday’s semifinals and loser-out consolation games. This page will be updated throughout the day.
Find out what happened leading up to this point in our game recaps from Wednesday’s opening-round action and Thursday’s quarterfinals.
CLASS 4A BOYS
SEMIFINALS
NO. 1 CURTIS 56, NO. 4 FEDERAL WAY 43
Federal Way threw everything it could at defending state champion Curtis in a 4A semifinal game at the Tacoma Dome on Friday night: a full-court press, trap, man-to-man, 2-3 zone.
But Curtis is the defending 4A state champion for a reason, and for every look the Eagles gave them, the Vikings had an answer.
The best answer, perhaps — the immense talent of five-star junior guard Zoom Diallo, who dazzled with an array of spin moves, floaters, around-the-back dribbles, crossovers and virtually unguardable midrange jumpers and fadeaways.
Complemented by a constantly disruptive defense, Curtis pulled away for a 56-43 win to advance to Saturday’s 4A state championship game, where the Vikings will look to defend their title.
It was close early. Federal Way held a 10-9 lead after the first quarter, before Curtis ripped off 19 second-quarter points.
“I knew that I was just missing easy stuff,” said Diallo, who scored 25 points. “They were giving me easy stuff. I knew I just had to dial in and stay with it, just keep it with my form, keep it with my touches.”
Curtis played lockdown defense, too, particularly in the third quarter, limiting the Eagles to just six points. Federal Way shot just 28.3 percent from the field and 13.3 percent from 3-point range. Vaughn Weems, the 4A North Puget Sound League MVP, still scored 20 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, but Curtis made things difficult for the rest of Federal Way’s talented cast, including senior Dace Pleasant, who was held to 11 points.
Paulsen added 15 points for Curtis, including a pair of 3-pointers, and guard Cinque Maxwell scored 11.
Curtis will face Olympia in the championship game, after the Bears beat Mount Si in the other semifinal game. It will be Curtis’ fourth time playing Olympia this season. The Vikings have won two out of three so far.
NO. 3 OLYMPIA 51, NO. 2 MOUNT SI 45
Olympia will play in a state championship game Saturday night in Tacoma for the first time in 25 years.
After losing to Mount Si in the state semifinals last winter, the Bears made sure history didn’t repeat in the Tacoma Dome on Friday night, leading the way much of the second half to this time upend the Wildcats in the same round.
Olympia never trailed in the second half, took the game’s final lead with 3:15 to play on a basket from forward Andreas Engholm after the Wildcats had rallied to tie, and closed the game on a 10-4 run to advance.
“There was definitely a bad taste in our mouth from last year in the same situation, so that helped fuel me personally a lot,” Engholm said. “I just wanted to go right at them.”
Engholm finished with a game-high 23 points, while Matt Lindblom added 11 points for the Bears. WSU-bound guard Parker Gerrits added six points, 11 boards and four assists in the win.
Trevor Hennig paced Mount Si (25-3) with 21 points, while Blake Forrest had 12 and Miles Heide completed a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
The Bears (25-5) will play in the 4A state championship game at 9 p.m. Saturday in the Tacoma Dome — their first appearance in a title game since playing Rainier Beach in the 3A final in 1998.
“It’s crazy to think about,” Gerrits said. “We’ve worked so hard for this and it’s been a long time since Olympia has been in the state championship game. So, it means a lot.
“Especially with the stuff that went on this year, with the ’98 team coming back for the Rainier Beach game and all of that happening. It’s kind of surreal that all of this is happening now, so we’re really pumped.”
Olympia is set to face 4A South Puget Sound League rival Curtis for the fourth time this season in the championship game. The Vikings lead the season series, 2-1.
CONSOLATION
NO. 10 CAMAS 77, NO. 6 SKYLINE 57
The Papermakers (20-8) are headed to a placing game for the first time in more than six decades.
Camas routed Skyline in the first consolation game of the day on the boys court Friday morning to earn a spot in Saturday’s fourth-sixth place game at 8 a.m.
Regardless of outcome on the final day in the Tacoma Dome, Camas will take home a trophy for the first time since the program placed eighth at the 1A level in 1962.
Beckett Currie led five scorers who reached double figures for the Papermakers against Skyline, tallying 21 points. Jamison Carlisle added 14 points, while Theo McMillan completed a double-double with 12 points and 19 rebounds, and Jace VanVoorhis and Josh Dabasinskas each added 10 points.
Trey Crandall scored a game-high 22 points for the Spartans, who end the season at 20-8.
NO. 5 GONZAGA PREP 72, NO. 8 RICHLAND 63
The Bullpups overcame a slow start in the first quarter to win comfortably against Richland and move on to Saturday’s fourth-sixth place game.
Gonzaga Prep outscored Richland 63 to 45 over the final three quarters to pull away for the win. Jamil Miller scored a game-high 20 points and pulled down 12 boards for the Bullpups. Guard Henry Sandberg scored 18 points and guard Jayce Swanson added 15. Richland’s Jase Vopalensky scored a team-high 17 points in the loss, while forward Lucas Westerfield added 16 points and had 15 rebounds.
Richland finishes the season with a 22-6 record. Gonzaga Prep (23-5) will face Camas in the fourth-sixth place game at 8 a.m. on Saturday.
Gonzaga Prep is guaranteed its highest placing at the Tacoma Dome since 2019, when the Bullpups beat Mount Si to win their second consecutive state title. Current Gonzaga University Bulldog Anton Watson — who scored 33 points in the 2019 state championship game — was that year’s tournament MVP.
CLASS 4A GIRLS
SEMIFINALS
NO. 4 EASTLAKE 64, NO. 7 KAMIAKIN 53
Given the break of a lifetime, Eastlake wasn’t about to squander it.
The Wolves grabbed an early double-digit lead against Kamiakin in the first of the 4A girls state semifinals at the Tacoma Dome, then continued to build upon it for a victory over Kamiakin on Friday night. Eastlake, thus, earned a chance to win its second title in four years.
The Wolves will face the winner of the semifinal between No. 3 Tahoma and No. 2 Camas at 7 p.m. Saturday in the state championship game.
Eastlake’s lead grew to as many as 18 points when Sofia Aluas drove to the basket, went under the rim and reversed the ball in for a 55-37 advantage with just more than six minutes left.
“Defense is our strong suit, and that’s what we take pride in,” Eastlake guard Natalia Sefair-Lopez said.
The Wolves (23-6), of course, were the beneficiaries of the controversial call a night earlier when the officials ruled Ava Schmidt’s 3-pointer in overtime good despite video appearing to show the shot was released after the buzzer sounded.
Schmidt scored a game-high 29 points against the Braves (23-5). Nikole Thomas had 14 points for Kamiakin.
NO. 2 CAMAS 57, NO. 3 TAHOMA 47
Tahoma will have to be satisfied with a chance at third place.
That’s because the Bears had no solutions for the Camas Papermakers during a 4A state semifinalS game Friday night at the Tacoma Dome. During the first half, Camas bombed away from behind the 3-point line. After the break, the Papermakers fed Addison Harris repeatedly inside.
Both strategies worked in a Camas victory that propelled the Papermakers (24-3) into their first-ever state championship game. Camas plays 2019 champion Eastlake for the title at 7 p.m.
Tahoma (23-4), which lost for the third time this season to the Papermakers, will play Kamiakin for third and fifth places at 1 p.m. On Friday, the Bears kept things much tighter than either of the first two outings.
“We lost by 20 and we lost by 30,” Tahoma coach Peter Smith said. “So obviously we had to make some sort of adjustment. We thought tonight, we’d throw a little bit of everything (defensively).”
It kept it close, even as Camas made seven of 11 from behind the 3-point arc in the first half. The Bears still held Camas to 23 points over the first 16 minutes.
But, at the same time Tahoma managed to make only three of 22 shots (13.6 percent) and just one of 10 3-pointers. That translated into a 23-13 hole by halftime that the Bears could never climb out of after the break.
“We got everything we wanted,” Smith said. “We got Addie (Harris) in foul trouble, we got her out of the game. Just a lot of in and outs tonight.”
Camas made just one from behind the line after halftime, but James scored eight of her 11 points on four shots at the rim to keep the Papermakers offense grooving.
Tahoma got within six late in the third and again with 2:57 to play when Amelie Sitterud made a 3-pointer to close the gap to 47-41. The Bears never got closer.
Hope Hassmann led all scorers for Tahoma with 15 points. Riley Sanz had 13 points to lead four Papermakers in double figures.
CONSOLATION
NO. 8 EMERALD RIDGE 69, NO. 11 BELLARMINE PREP 59
Emerald Ridge scored the game’s first 11 points, but Bellarmine crawled back into it and the contest settled into a back-and-forth affair before the Jaguars eventually earned the program’s first-ever state trophy with a 10-point victory.
The game was played less than 24 hours after Bellarmine lost to Eastlake in overtime in a Thursday quarterfinal, when a final Wolves shot from near half-court that video appears to show was released after the final buzzer nevertheless went down and was counted as good.
The 3-pointer turned a 60-59 Bellarmine victory into a 62-60 loss.
The hangover effect from that defeat carried over into the first six minutes or so of the loser-out game against Emerald Ridge. But after Keiara Curtis finally broke the seal on the basket with her driving layup with 4:27 to play in the first quarter, Bellarmine slowly found its way back into the game.
A Kiara Stone 3-pointer with 7:24 left in the second quarter gave the Lions their first lead, 21-20, and the game remained close the rest of the way.
The Jaguars (21-7) will play in the fourth-sixth place game against either Gonzaga Prep or Woodinville on Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. Win or lose, Emerald Ridge takes hardware home for the first time ever.
Barnett led four Jaguars in double figures scoring with 16 points to go with 14 rebounds. Teammate Ryah McGriff also had a double-double with 15 points and 12 boards.
Curtis led all scorers for the Lions with 21 points. Bellarmine (22-9) finished with consecutive losses instead of playing in the state semifinals where the Lions felt they rightly belonged on Friday.
NO. 1 WOODINVILLE 47, NO. 12 GONZAGA PREP 35
Top-seeded Woodinville rebounded from its quarterfinalS loss to Camas, finding its offense late to pull away from Gonzaga Prep in the final loser-out game of the 4A girls basketball tournament at the Tacoma Dome.
Woodinville’s victory over the Bullpups gets the Falcons (26-3) a rematch with Emerald Ridge for fourth and sixth places at 9:30 a.m. Saturday. It was the Jaguars who a week ago upset top-ranked Woodinville in the regional round.
That loss flipped the Falcons into the lower half of the 4A bracket and forced a No. 1 vs. No. 2 game in the quarterfinals with Camas — a game many expected to see for the title on Saturday. The Papermakers won that game, dumping Woodinville into the consolation bracket where they needed to beat Gonzaga Prep (19-9) just to earn a trophy here.
Jaecy Eggers got close to recording the tournament’s first triple-double with 12 points, 12 rebounds and six blocked shots for Woodinville. Olivia McIntyre paced the Bullpups with 12 points.
CLASS 3A BOYS
SEMIFINALS
No. 5 O’Dea 57, No. 1 Mount Spokane 52
O’Dea is getting used to winning close games. At one point trailing by 10 in the second quarter to Mount Spokane in the 3A state tournament semifinal on Friday night in the Tacoma Dome, the Fighting Irish stayed the course and clawed back to a 57-52 win, knocking off the tournament’s top seed. It sends O’Dea to Saturday’s state championship game.
O’Dea outscored Mount Spokane 32-16 in the second and third quarters and went into grind-it-out mode in the fourth quarter.
“The big thing this year is just staying poised,” said O’Dea guard Mason Williams. “They had a 10-point lead and we came back, just staying poised. We know in the fourth quarter, when we really gotta sit down, we just sit down and get stops.”
Williams and wing Miles Clark scored 14 points apiece for the Irish. Mount Spokane guard Ryan Lafferty poured in a game-high 26 points and forward Maverick Sanders added 18, productive as usual for the Wildcats. They didn’t receive much help, though, as the rest of the team combined for only eight points.
Mount Spokane will play in the loser of the Garfield vs. Auburn game at 1 p.m. in the third-fifth place game on Saturday.
NO. 2 GARFIELD 61, NO. 4 AUBURN 50
Auburn gave it everything it could, but eventually Garfield pulled away in a 61-50 win in the 3A state tournament semifinal at the Tacoma Dome on Friday night, to advance to Saturday’s championship game. Garfield outscored Auburn 34-21 in the second half.
“We just gotta get a feel for the game, play at our own pace, not play down to our competition’s level, keep running our sets, keep playing hard on defense and we’ll be good,” said Garfield forward Sherrell McCullum Jr.
McCullum Jr. scored a team-high 15 points. Legend Smiley scored 12 and Jaylin Stewart added 11. Auburn was paced by Tyrell Nichols’ game-high 20 points, including 6-of-10 shooting from 3-point range. Devon Anderson added 11.
Auburn will face Mount Spokane in Saturday’s third-fifth place game. Garfield will face Metro League peer O’Dea in the state championship game.
“I’m expecting a hard-fought, scrappy championship game,” McCullum Jr. said. “Whoever wins is gonna win on defense.”
CONSOLATION
No. 10 Bellevue 50, No. 6 Mountlake Terrace 46
Mountlake Terrace led most of the second half before Bellevue surged late to win Friday afternoon’s consolation game to advance to Saturday’s fourth-sixth place game.
Bellevue scored just three points in the third quarter before outscoring Mountlake Terrace 20 to 11 in the final period. Alex Yu tied the game with under two minutes to play and Brady Kageyama hit a 3-pointer with 1 minute, 17 seconds remaining to put the Wolverines ahead for good.
Kageyama scired a game-high 21 points. Jaxon Dubiel led Mountlake Terrace with a team-high 17 points. Forward Zaveon Jones added 15.
Mountlake Terrace ends the season with a 19-8 record. Bellevue (24-5) will face the winner of Friday’s No. 3 Eastside Catholic vs. No. 16 Shorecrest consolation game at 9:30 a.m. in Saturday’s fourth-sixth place game.
Bellevue will be guaranteed a placement for the first time since the 2016 season, when the Wolverines took sixth.
No. 3 Eastside Catholic 58, No. 16 Shorecrest 48
There was a buzz around Shorecrest following its opening-round upset win against Rainier Beach on Wednesday. The Highlanders were the lowest seed to advance to the quarterfinals in either the 3A or 4A boys or girls brackets.
But the potential Cinderella run fizzled out before it could truly garner statewide attention, with Shorecrest falling to No. 2 Garfield on Thursday. Then, another loss to a Metro League team, at the hands of Eastside Catholic on Friday afternoon.
Eastside Catholic held Shorecrest to 34 percent shooting from the field and won comfortably. The Crusaders, meanwhile, shot 42.3 percent from the field, led by Kayden Greene, who scored a team-high 16 points. Parker Baumann scored a game-high 19 points for Shorecrest in the loss.
Eastside Catholic (20-9) will be guaranteed a placement for the first time since the 2020 season, when the Crusaders took third. Shorecrest finishes its season with a 19-8 record. Eastside Catholic will face No. 10 Bellevue at 9:30 a.m. in the fourth-sixth place game on Saturday.
CLASS 3A GIRLS
SEMIFINALS
NO. 1 GARFIELD 63, NO. 4 MEAD 54
There are 32 minutes left to history for the Garfield Bulldogs.
Garfield finally separated itself late in the third quarter from a hard-charging group of believers from Mead to earn a third consecutive trip back to the 3A state championship game with a victory over the Panthers in a semifinal game Friday evening.
In what turned into a mano-a-mano battle of point guards, Katie Fiso and company out-paced Teryn Gardner’s huge effort. Early on, Gardner had the edge.
The junior’s basket with 1:19 to play in the first quarter staked Mead to an 18-14 lead on the two-time defending champs. Gardner, checked constantly by Fiso, poured in 17 of her team-high 25 points in the first half — a half that got to the break tied at 28-28.
After halftime, Fiso turned the tables. The Bulldogs junior scored 18 of her game-high 26 points in the second half, including going 7-for-7 from the free throw line, six of those coming in the final 1:25 of the game to make sure there would be no late Panthers comeback. Fiso also contributed 10 rebounds to the cause.
“That’s what I work for,” Fiso said. “To make big-time plays. I knew what I had to do in the second half to get the lead up. Now, it’s just one more.”
NO. 3 LAKE WASHINGTON 70, NO. 2 ARLINGTON 64
The years may change, but the 3A state field simply seems to stay the same each season.
Lake Washington set up a third consecutive championship game against two-time defending champ Garfield with a late comeback for a semifinalS victory over Arlington on Friday night at the Tacoma Dome.
“I’m so excited,” Lake Washington senior Sydney Hani said. “I wouldn’t want to play anyone else in the final.”
Ashley Uusitalo, Rae Butler Wu and Jolie Sim made 3-pointers on three straight trips down the floor, fueling a 9-1 run to erase a 54-51 deficit with 3:42 to play. They were three of the 10 from long range that the Kangaroos (26-2) made in the game.
That total didn’t lead the game, though. The Eagles (22-3) poured in a dozen from behind the arc to tie the 3A state tournament record for a single game.
Mount Spokane first made 12 3-pointers in a game in 2016, then Snohomish matched the feat a year ago.
Jenna Villa, who made four of those dozen, led all scorers for Arlington with 26 points. Sim scored 20 to pace the Kangs.
CONSOLATION
NO. 6 STANWOOD 56, NO. 7 LAKESIDE OF SEATTLE 55
Stanwood took advantage of two missed front ends of 1-and-1 free throw attempts by Lakeside to earn a spot in a trophy game in the 3A state bracket Friday morning.
Vivienne Berrett made a turn-around jumper from about 10 feet to lift the Spartans to the one-point victory over the Lions. The win advances Stanwood (21-6) to the fourth-sixth place game at 8 a.m. Saturday morning at the Tacoma Dome.
It marks the second time in five years the Spartans have trophied in Tacoma. They were fifth in 2018.
Just before Berrett beat the double-team defensive effort from Lakeside (19-5), the Lions missed free throws with 1:12 and 20.6 seconds left that would have extended their 55-54 lead.
Berrett finished with a team-high 22 points to go with seven rebounds.
Mia Broom led all scorers for Lakeside with 26 points, while Claire O’Connor added a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds.
NO. 5 LINCOLN OF TACOMA 66, NO. 8 MEADOWDALE 65
Carmayla Jackson’s rebound and putback rolled across the back of the rim before falling in with just under five seconds to play, but in it went. Jackson’s shot proved the game-winner as Lincoln lived to play for a trophy on Saturday morning.
The Abes (21-5) eliminated Meadowdale (19-9) from the 3A state tournament with the victory. Lincoln will play Stanwood in the fourth-sixth place game at 8 a.m. Saturday at the Tacoma Dome.
The Abes needed a huge comeback just to put themselves in position to advance and add to the school trophy case for the first time since 2017, when they finished fifth. The Mavericks led by as many as 14 points in the first half, 30-16.
By the half, Lincoln had cut the deficit to six, at 36-30, and with two minutes remaining in the third quarter took only its second lead of the game, 46-45. It went back and forth from there until Gia Powell missed the front end of a 1-and-1 for Meadowdale with 22.8 seconds left.
Lincoln raced down the floor, got into the lane and missed twice, but got offensive rebounds from Oliviyah Edwards and finally Jackson, whose putback won it. Edwards recorded her second double-double of the tournament with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
Powell made six 3-pointers for the Mavericks and finished with a game-high 32 points. Jaleigha Robinson paced the Abes with 25 points. She also had seven boards and three assists.
This story was originally published March 3, 2023 at 8:00 AM.
