Trust carries Prairie girls to the Tacoma Dome

Clark County had nine basketball teams in the state regional round last week. Four of them won, and all four games were decided in the fourth quarter.

The Union boys did end up winning by 12 points, but the Titans trailed by 10 with six minutes to play.

The King’s Way Christian boys won in overtime, surviving a wild finish in regulation.

The Prairie girls led almost their entire game, only to have to hold off a late charge in a two-point victory.

The Skyview girls got the benefit of a call none of them expected to get and won by a point.

Survive and advance. That’s all that matters at this point.

These four teams did just that. We will share their stories, Wednesday and Thursday, on just how they managed to survive. And now that they have advanced, they explain what they learned from their experiences at regionals.

The Prairie girls basketball team took the lead late in the first quarter and kept it last week in the Falcons’ Class 3A state regional game against Juanita of Kirkland.

But it got tense. Real tense at the end.

“It was a little scary,” said Natalie Whitesel, who led Prairie with 15 rebounds. “But I trusted everyone on the team.”

The trust factor is what has led the Falcons to the state quarterfinals. They play Bellevue on Thursday in the Tacoma Dome.

The Falcons had to trust that they were doing everything they could to hold off Juanita. They were playing their typical solid defense. Yet, somehow, someway, Juanita kept making tough shots, including back-to-back 3-pointers in the closing seconds to make it a one-point game.

After that second 3-pointer, Prairie coach Brett Johnson had a tough thought cross his mind.

“That’s when you’re thinking, ‘Is this going to be one of those times?'”

That would be the dreaded nightmare for a coach: Play well, lead almost the entire game, but still the other team finds a way to win.

That scenario did not happen.

“The defense has been holding up,” Johnson said. “I knew if it came down to it, they’d do what they had to do.”

Cherita Daugherty made a free throw to give Prairie a two-point lead, then the Prairie defense did the rest.

Daugherty knocked the ball away from Juanita. There was a scramble for the ball.

Whitesel got to it as well as an opponent. Jump ball. Possession still with Juanita, at midcourt with about two seconds remaining, but that scenario killed seven crucial seconds off the clock.

“That’s what we wanted,” Whitesel said. “Then we played some man defense and didn’t let them cut to the basket for an easy shot.”

Juanita got the ball in play, but did not get a good look.

“I looked up at the scoreboard. ‘We just won!’ We’re actually going to the Tacoma Dome!’ I just ran to my teammates,” Whitesel said. “We were all happy, all hugging.”

Johnson said this was not a case of his team getting any lucky bounces.

“It was the girls going out to get every ball. They jumped on every loose ball,” Johnson said.

Moving forward, that’s the effort that will be needed in the dome.

“Once you get to this point, every team is good,” Whitesel said. “It’s exciting that we’re here. If we play hard together, we can accomplish anything. This is it. Run after every loose ball. Sprint down the court. Do the little things. And leave it all out there.”

That’s the Prairie way.