Reid Roelofs, Life Christian rally, hold off Mossyrock in OT for 2B district title

The Eagles did, eventually, cut down the nets here Saturday after winning the Southwest 2B District championship — in overtime, 74-72, against an upstart Mossyrock squad.

Getting to the ladders, though, was an interesting proposition for Life Christian Academy.

Mossyrock held a 56-47 lead at the outset of the fourth quarter, prompting coach Mark Lovelady to — take a deep breath and let his kids figure it out?

“Really, it was the kids. I didn’t call any timeouts,” Lovelady said. “One of the coaches said to call a timeout, and I said, ‘I’m going to let them play through this and see.’”

The coach’s instincts were right. The fact that the third-ranked Eagles are made up of his son — 6-foot-7 guard Luke Lovelady, a junior and the two-time Pacific 2B League MVP — certainly helped.

“It’s my son and his buddies,” he joked. “How can you go wrong?”

The Eagles went to work. Reid Roelofs, a 6-5 guard, scored 8 of his team-high 31 points in a 10-0 run, finishing a 3-point play with 6:25 left in regulation to put the Eagles in the lead for the first time since early in the second quarter.

Mossyrock battled, staying within striking distance thanks to senior guard-forward Jaron Kirkley and his supporting cast. Kirkley finished with 35 points, and Levi Munoz cashed in a 3-pointer with a minute left that gave the Vikings a 66-64 lead.

Luke Lovelady, though, tied it up with a pair of foul shots with just under a minute to go. Roelofs became the second Eagle starter to foul out with 17 seconds left, joining CJ Kovacs on the pine, but Mossyrock’s would-be game-winning layup with blocked seconds before time expired.

“We don’t get close games like this,” Mark Lovelady said, citing his team’s 30-a-game margin of victory in P2BL action. “It wasn’t pretty, but the bottom line is they got the job done.”

The job was nearly done early in overtime. Buckets from Luke Lovelady and Anthony Kunitsa, and a foul shot from Payton Shamp, staked LCA a 5-point lead before Luke Lovelady, too, fouled out midway through the extra frame.

Kirkley scored his final points with 1:10 left to cut the lead to 4, and Danny Nelson hit a triple with 27 seconds left to make it a 1-point game.

LCA’s Wyatt Dunlap added a free throw with 4 seconds left, and Mossyrock’s last-ditch play resulted in an off-balance 3-pointer from Nelson that missed the mark.

And with that, the Eagles were able to take scissors in hand and get to work on the nets.

“That was the craziest game I ever played in,” Luke Lovelady said. “It just shows how good our team is at staying together. We never got down on each other. We’re always encouraging each other.”

The Eagles (22-2) will move on to the 2B regional playoffs, with a matchup against Napavine — the No. 5 seed out of the Southwest 2B District — next week. The Eagles beat Napavine, 60-52, in the district semifinals.

preps@thenewstribune.com

This story was originally published February 21, 2016 at 12:35 AM with the headline "Reid Roelofs, Life Christian rally, hold off Mossyrock in OT for 2B district title."