LONGVIEW—The La Center boys exited in the locker room with heads dropped, rank-and-file, still trying to process the end of its season.
The Wildcats were minutes removed from being convincingly flattened, 61-48, to a physically imposing Montesano on Friday night at Mark Morris high school in a loser-out game in the 1A state tournament.
“We knew they were going to be physical,” Jeremy Ecklund said. “We tried to plan for that, we just weren’t able to execute through it.”
A pair of 9-0 runs at the beginning of each half resulted in La Center playing the majority of the game from behind. The Wildcats hit a pair of 3s at the end of the second half to pull within four, but Montesano started off the second half hot.
L.J. Valley hit three 3-pointers to put the Bulldogs up 13 early in the third, which proved tough for the Wildcats, who fancy themselves a third quarter team (they outscored King’s Way 27-3 in the third quarter in Saturday’s district title).
Avery Seter, who led the Wildcats with 17 points on the night, scored 10 of the team’s 13 points in the quarter to help them stay within range, but in the fourth, Montesano pulled away.
The Wildcats hoped to utilize its speed a agility against a big, bulky Bulldog roster. Montesano flooded the lanes and forced the Wildcats to take 36 3-pointers, of which they made 10. Valley proved tough on both side of the floor. He finished with a game-high 24 points to lead the Bulldogs.
“We haven’t really faced a team with their size this season,” Hunter Ecklund said. “They clogged up the middle, they couldn’t drive in the middle, we settled for too many outside 3s.”
“They were definitely more physical than we predicted,” senior guard Saige Keep said.
Montesano outrebounded the Wildcats 41-35 and pulled down 17 offensive rebounds, which effectively slowed a Wildcat team that hoped to get out in transition and win with its quickness.
“We thought we could run them off the floor,” La Center guard Hunter Ecklund said, “but our transition just wasn’t there.”
Hunter Ecklund, a sophomore, finished with 13 points–nine of which came from his three 3-pointers in the second quarter that helped keep the Wildcats close.
La Center gambled by scheduling an array of tough nonleague competitors to open the season in hopes for an RPI boost but started out 3-7. It then ran the table in the 1A Trico League finishing a perfect 10-0 before going on to win its first district title since the 2001-2002 season.
But the Wildcats fell short of its end goal: getting to Yakima. La Center entered the night believing its season would resume at the Yakima Sun Dome on Wednesday. It left frustrated, sulking and battered.
Despite that, Jeremy Ecklund’s speech after the game aimed to keep heads held high.
“Our season is not defined by that game,” Jeremy Ecklund said. “Whenever they come back in the gym when they’re old guys, they’re going to see that banner that they got first in league and first in districts – don’t dwell that we didn’t get to Yakima.”
And, on top of the loss, the La Center coach believes his team was not helped out by the WIAA’s RPI system, which pitted the Wildcats (16-7) outside the top-8.
“There’s no reason we should have been playing a team that was third out of our district at a chance to go to state,” Jeremy Ecklund said. “I wish the WIAA would wake up and go back to their 16-team tournament, honor a district champ. A district champ should go to state, not be in an elimination game because we didn’t finish top-8 in the RPI, which for a lot of teams is out of their control. It’s a crapshoot. If your league is weak, you don’t have a lot of wins, you’re not going to get your RPI up in the first place. I think we’re a good case of that. Went undefeated in league and it didn’t help us.”
NO. 14 MONTESANO 61, NO. 11 LA CENTER 48
LA CENTER—Shaydon Amstutz 0, Colby Shaw 0, Saige Keep 9, Colin Obot 0, Evan Norris 6, Avery Seter 17, Matt Bryant 3, Evan Honore 0, Hunter Ecklund 13, Mason Weaver 0, Wyatt Siebert 0, Jack Hiller 0. 17 (10) 4-9 48.
MONTESANO—Evan Bates 4, Trevor Ridgway 14, Tanner Nicklas 2, Sam Winter 10, Donovan Albert 0, Payson Parker 0, L.J. Valley 24, Shaydon Farmer 2, Seth Dierkop 5. 20 (6) 15-20 61.
La Center 15 15 13 14—48
Montesano 15 19 13 5—61
