Class 4A first round: No. 15 Graham-Kapowsin's run continues with impressive win over No. 7 Davis boys
TACOMA, Wash. — The Graham-Kapowsin boys basketball team is getting used to playing the role of the underdog.
The Eagles are getting equally used to winning.
After pulling the upset over No. 10 Glacier Peak in the regional round of the 4A state tournament, the 15th-ranked Eagles (14-9) did it again on Wednesday, rolling over No. 7 Davis 65-47 to advance to Thursday’s quarterfinals.
The Eagles used a 9-0 run to close the first half and extended that run to 14-0 in the early minutes of the third quarter to go from trailing by one to up 13. That lead stayed in double-digits for the remainder of the game.
“To go into halftime the way we went into halftime was huge for us,” Graham-Kapowsin head coach Connie Richardson said. “It just gave them momentum to just come out and play harder. Our kids have never sprinted that hard into the locker room before.”
Davis head coach Eli Juarez addressed the run to close out the second quarter with his team at halftime, but the Pirates (19-3) could never get things turned around in the second half.
“That was one of the things we elaborated on at halftime, and that was you can’t let a team have three or four possessions (in a row) because when you get to the tournament, every possession is going to be important,” Davis head coach Eli Juarez said. “We gave the last three or four possessions to them and they scored, it just kind of deflates a little bit of the balloon that you had going. And in the second half, it kind of continued on a little bit.”
After back-to-back upsets, the Eagles have a chance at the ultimate upset on Thursday. G-K will face No. 1 Mount Si at 5:30 p.m. for a spot in the semifinals. The Wildcats enter the Tacoma Dome with a record of 23-0. Of those 23 victories, the margin of victory been less than 12 points only once.
“We’re definitely motivated,” Graham-Kapowsin senior Joshua Wood said. “We’ve got a big one coming up next with Mount Si. It’s going to be a hard one, but we’ve got a good group and we’re going to keep trying to make a deep run into this and try to win a state championship.
Wood finished with 14 points for the Eagles, who were led by junior Elijah Cane’s 19. Sophomore Isaiah Norris also added 15, including three big 3s in the second half.
Sophomore Brandon Lee Jr. led the Pirates with 13 points, but Davis shot just 17-for-55 (30.9 percent) from the field for the game. The Pirates were able to execute their offense well, especially early in the second half, but had several shots turned away by the suffocating interior defense of the Eagles.
“For some of my young guys on the team, what they struggled with was basically a very physical defense that came at you when trying to finish,” Juarez said. “I would probably say that we understand the importance of lifting the weights and doing the work in the offseason. Hopefully they can learn from that. It was probably their physicality more than anything that prevented us from finishing up on the inside.”
While the season ends for the Pirates after just their third loss of the season, the future looks bright. They graduate four seniors, but the remainder of the team is made up of two freshman and six sophomores.
“This is a very, very good group of kids that understand that GPAs are important, but they also understand the game very well,” Juarez said. “Last year, when they were freshman, three of (the sophomores) started for me. This year, two of them started and one came off the bench, and then of course having another freshman start (this year), I’m super-excited about next year.”
---Aaron Lommers; @aaronlommers.
