By Kiara Doyal, The Seattle Medium
Last night, the Rainier Beach Vikings had a come-from-behind victory against the O’Dea Fighting Irish to claim the boys 3A District 2 Championship game at Bellevue College.
The Vikings won the opening tip, but shortly after, Tyran Stokes was called for a travel, turning the ball over to O’Dea. The travel was the spark that the Fighting Irish needed to begin what would be a 9-0 run over Rainier Beach, led by Brian Webster and Levi Orbino. Until Stokes was sent to the line and converted two points to give Rainier Beach its first points of the night, making the score 9-2 halfway through the opening quarter.
A determined Fighting Irish team came ready to play and opened the game with a 9-0 run led by Brian Webster and Levi Orbino. Rainier Beach’s Tyran Stokes ended the run when he went to the free-throw line and converted both shots to give the Vikings their first score of the night as they trailed 9-2.
In effort to get his team’s attention, Rainier Beach head coach Mike Bethea benched all of his key starters, and the Fighting Irish took full advantage of the opportunity in front of them and went on a 6-0 run, pushing the score to 15-2. In the final minute of the first quarter, the Vikings’ Louis Harris added a basket, and Webster closed out the quarter by draining a three-point shot, sending O’Dea into the second quarter with an 18-4 lead.
O’Dea started the second quarter with a layup from JuJu Duckett, pushing its lead to 20-4. Viking Micah Ili-Meneese managed to score what looked like an impossible shot in the paint, narrowing the gap to 20-6. But O’Dea answered with a shot by Webster to increase the lead to 22-6. Despite it being a low-scoring game thus far for Rainier Beach, the Vikings woke up and started making plays on the court. Led by Micah Ili-Meneese, the Vikings began to slowly cut into O’Dea’s lead. However, the Fighting Irish remained just as alert. After a huge block by the Fighting Irish’s Gene Woodard III, O’Dea forced Rainier Beach into a shot clock violation, as it continued to remain very active on defense.
Webster continued to lead O’Dea’s offense by adding three-point shots and cracking down on defense. With about a minute left in the first half, Micah Ili-Meneese picked up his third foul of the night, which was huge for O’Dea. With 30 seconds left on the clock, Stokes chipped in two points before sending Webster to the line, where he knocked down both baskets as O’Dea closed out the first half with a 31-18 lead.
Both teams battled back and forth to begin the second half as they exchanged consecutive steals without scoring. Determined to get more points on the board, Micah Ili-Meneese went on a 6-0 run on his own, making the score 33-26, still in favor of O’Dea, prompting a timeout. Immediately after the timeout, the ball was in the hand of Stokes, who drove it to the hoop for a dunk. Stokes was then sent to the line by O’Dea’s Giulio Banchero, who picked up his third foul, and converted one point, bringing the score to 33-29.
The dunk by Stokes was the boost of energy that Rainier Beach needed, as he added a layup to cut the deficit to two points, 33-31. Armstrong followed with a layup for the Vikings to tie the game at 33 with two minutes left in the quarter. For the remainder of the period, the teams traded baskets. Despite Rainier Beach outscoring O’Dea 19-7 in the third quarter, O’Dea held a 39-37 lead heading into the final period.
Stokes tied the game at 39 to begin the fourth quarter. O’Dea’s Josiah Bowman then took back-to-back trips to the free-throw line, where he converted three of four points, giving O’Dea a slight 42-39 lead. The Vikings’ Kam Babbs answered with a three-point shot to tie the game at 42.
With 5:31 left on the clock, Stokes picked up his third foul and briefly went to the bench. However, that didn’t slow Rainier Beach’s momentum, as Armstrong and Babbs helped push the Vikings’ lead to 46-42. Stokes checked back into the game and immediately had a block against Orbino that resulted in a timeout by O’Dea with 3:38 left on the clock.
Armstrong and Woodard III both went to the line, converting one of two points each, and Stokes followed with a layup to push the Vikings’ lead to 49-43. As time was counting down, Stokes and the Vikings began to appear more aggressive on the court. As tensions were high between Stokes and Banchero, who had been battling all night, Banchero fouled out with 2 minutes left in the game, sending Stokes to the line, where he made one of two free throws to give his team a seven-point lead at 50-43. Bethea then called a timeout with 1:49 left on the clock to strategize for the final moments of the game. Following the timeout, Webster lit up the court with a three-point shot, but Stokes immediately followed up with a highly contested layup for Rainier Beach.
O’Dea then called a timeout with 45 seconds left on the clock. After the break, Stokes got right back to work, drawing a foul and getting a block against O’Dea’s Peyton Brooks that sealed the outcome of the game as the Fighting Irish were showing signs of defeat. To close out the game, Babbs went to the free-throw line twice, converting three of four points, sealing a 56-47 comeback victory against O’Dea.
Rainier Beach was led by Stokes, who finished with 17 points, while O’Dea was led by Webster, who finished with 18 points.
After the game, Rainier Beach head coach Mike Bethea was proud of how his team persevered and showed its mental toughness.
“Sometimes they are going to be tough games like that,” said Bethea. “O’Dea is a good team, and they got off to a great start, but we persevered.”
“It was one of those things where we just didn’t give up, and that just showed me a different character in this team,” added Bethea. “We have the ability to come back no matter how bad it is. And like I told them, we just have to focus on worrying about the stuff that we can control, because we can’t worry about stuff that we can’t control.”
Photos/Aaron Allen
