TACOMA — Losses offer good opportunities to learn from, and the Camas boys basketball team took away several lessons from Thursday’s experience playing in the Class 4A state quarterfinals.
The No. 10 seed Papermakers drew a rematch against No. 1 seed Curtis, but much like the game two weeks ago in the District 3/4 playoffs, the defending state champion Vikings looked dominant for stretches of a 73-46 win at the Tacoma Dome.
Tyce Paulsen led Curtis (26-3) with 20 points and Zoom Diallo, the top-ranked Washington recruit in the class of 2024, scored 18 points to send the Vikings to Friday’s semifinals.
Camas (19-8), led by Theo McMillan’s 14 points and Jace VanVoorhis’ 10 points, will play Skyline on Friday at 9 a.m. in a loser-out game. The winner moves on to Saturday and is assured of taking home a state trophy.
The focus of the Papermakers’ post-game chat Thursday was looking at the factors that separated them from the Vikings, who Camas coach Ryan Josephson lauded for their level of execution. Curtis also defeated Camas 79-46 in the bi-district playoffs Feb. 16.
They talked about simple things like Camas’ pace and precision on setting screens. They talked about the rebounding battle, which Curtis won 36-25. They also talked about transition defense, which proved to be challenging against a Vikings team that thrives on getting out and running. Curtis scored 27 points off of 22 Camas turnovers.
“If you can’t take any lessons from a loss, then you’re really just hurting yourself even more,” Josephson said. “There are great lessons to learn when you play a team at the caliber of Curtis. They are defending state champion for a reason.
“Really our gameplan at this point has to be about, how can we play better and achieve our vision of what Camas basketball is, more so than what the other team is doing.”
The turnaround time from Thursday to Friday of less than 24 hours meant Camas had to move on quickly from the loss.
But the Papermakers don’t want to forget all of it. After all, Thursday was their first time playing in the state quarterfinals since 1962. After they defeated Tahoma in Wednesday’s Round of 12 to earn at least two more games in Tacoma, the Papermakers are trying to soak up the good memories too.
“This is an amazing experience,” McMillan said. “I was kind of just standing there looking around, seeing all the people and all the lights. I don’t want to forget about it, but it’s definitely one that we gotta kind of brush off our shoulders and we gotta move on to the next.”
The Papermakers have responded in five of their previous seven losses this season with a win. They’ll have an opportunity to add another Friday against No. 6 Skyline (20-7), which lost to Federal Way 69-53 in the quarterfinals.
“I feel like we’re going to respond really well. I feel like we match up really well against Skyline,” VanVoorhis said, “so (we’re) hoping to come out with a ‘W’ tomorrow.”
CURTIS 73, CAMAS 46
CAMAS (19-8) — Beckett Currie 5, Konnor Limnell 0, Matthew Sitler 0, Matthew Chilian 0, Jace VanVoorhis 10, Theo McMillan 14, Josh Dabasinskas 5, Cade Washington 2, Nyima Namru 0, Jamison Carlisle 6, Ethan Harris 2, Channing Nesland 2. Totals 17 (3) 9-11 46.
CURTIS (26-3) — Jordan Williams 0, Tyce Paulsen 20, Bilal El Ghalemi 6, Devin Whitten 2, Josiah Johnson 5, Zoom Diallo 18, Rocco Koch 1, Cinque Maxwell 14, Amare Chapel 0, Isaac Bacon 0, Brandon Logan 0, Xavier Ahrens 7. Totals 30 (6) 7-15 73.
Camas 12 11 11 12—46
Curtis 20 18 21 14—73
