By RayJaun Stelly, The Seattle Medium
The Eastside Catholic Crusaders have been on an impressive post-season run. Winners of their last five games, the Crusaders have beaten Garfield and West Seattle twice and won the Metro League championship with a victory over Rainier Beach.
With First-Team All-Metro forward Jacob Cofie and Metro League Coach of The Year Brent Merritt leading the way, Eastside Catholic found themselves playing in the WIAA 3A District 2 championship game against O’Dea.
The sixth-seeded Fighting Irish came into the tournament winning their last three games against Nathan Hale, Rainier Beach, and Bellevue. Now facing Eastside Catholic for the third time this season, O’Dea, who split their previous two meeting with Eastside Catholic, would have an opportunity to win a district championship before the state 3A tournament begins this week.
Eastside Catholic carried the momentum from their Metro League championship into the game as they got out to an 18-15 start, courtesy of their ability to get to the basket and not allow many second chance opportunities for O’Dea.
Despite O’Dea’s Mason Williams having two first quarter fouls, Miles Goodman made his presence felt by finishing in the paint and being a defensive anchor for the Fighting Irish in the middle.
Trailing by three points heading into the second quarter, the Fighting Irish’s defense would set the tone by forcing turnovers and limiting Eastside Catholic to just one shot per possession. This led to O’Dea’s Quincy Linton and Amare Jackson scoring back-to-back layups, giving them a 19-18 lead.
The Crusaders scoring drought lasted for the majority of the quarter until Jacob Cofie went on a personal 5-0 scoring run to help his team regain the lead. From there the teams would go back and forth and ultimately went into halftime tied at 31.
In the second half, O’Dea’s defense picked up where they left off in the first half. Their continued pressure kept Eastside Catholic out of sync, which led to the Fighting Irish building their biggest lead of the game, at 37-33.
Despite being down, the Crusaders never wavered. Eastside Catholic would get the spark they needed in Kayden Lamebull-Ingraham. Lamebull-Ingraham’s ability to play great on-ball defense, facilitate the offense, and score when called upon helped the Crusaders regain the lead heading into the fourth quarter.
In a thrilling game where both teams exchanged the lead, it was Eastside Catholic’s First-Team All-Metro forward Cofie who took control of the game and led his team to victory. With just eight minutes remaining and a 44-40 lead, Cofie stepped up his game, grabbing rebounds, sinking a difficult elbow jump shot, and making free throws to extend the Crusaders’ lead.
Lamebull-Ingraham came up huge yet again, making a three-pointer off an on-ball screen, finishing through contact at the rim, and making a floater over taller defenders as the Crusaders took a 57-48 lead with just two minutes and 20 seconds remaining.
Just when it looked like Eastside Catholic had sealed the game, O’Dea mounted a late-game surge that made things interesting. Miles Clark made an “and-one” layup, Quincy Linton hit a bank shot despite being closely guarded, and Noel Davis made two crucial free throws to pull the deficit to 59-55 in under 45 seconds.
With both teams in the bonus and the game on the line, scoring quickly and avoiding turnovers became critical. With 20.9 seconds remaining and Eastside Catholic leading 61-57, Lamebull-Ingraham was fouled and put on the free throw line, going through his routine he’d make both free throws.
Critical free throws down the stretch kept the game at two possessions, which worked in favor of Eastside Catholic who were able to win the district championship against O’Dea 65-59.
O’Dea earned themselves a fifth seed and will face the reigning state 3A champions Auburn on February 25 at 8:00 p.m. for this year’s state tournament opener. Eastside Catholic, a three-seed, will face Montlake Terrace at Bellevue College on February 25 at 6:00 p.m.
