Fan Guide: How 3A is Won
Aka, the who, what, when, where, and whys of a back-to-back Viking championship
The following is a re-ranking of the WIAA State 3A’s Final 12, what’s notable about them, and how I think they’ll do, with (original ranking in parenthese). The teams I didn’t see in person, I watched on video.
12. (11) Edmonds-Woodway: The Warriors have a shiny, fool’s gold type of 23-2 record. Those two losses are to Shorewood. Junior combo G Grant Williams can score (32 points in Round 2 win over Enumclaw) and senior G DJ Karl pitches in 15 points per game, but senior guard Cruz Escandon, a WSU commit (baseball) may miss the game for leaving the bench during a scuffle against Enumclaw.
11. (10) Shorewood: They have a cool nickname — the Stormrays — and defensive toughness, but they also have the misfortune of meeting an O’Dea team aching for redemption. The Shorewood boys haven’t advanced to the Tacoma Dome for 38 years, so making this game is an accomplishment. They beat Edmonds-Woodway 2 of 3 this season, giving them the edge in these re-rankings.
10. (8) Bellevue: The Wolverines gave O’Dea a tussle in districts, hurting the Irish with their 2-2-1 trap. Then they got rolled by two other Metro League teams, Eastside Catholic and Rainier Beach. If you can’t beat Seattle, you can’t win state. Bellevue has three pretty good players — Jackson Skaggs is steadiest with 18 ppg, Taten Jones adds 16 ppg, and Nicolas Norrah is the best athlete, but too often plays with indifference.
9. (4) Eastside Catholic: If the Crusaders maneuvered away from the Rainier Beach side of the bracket, as many think, they probably played with too much with fire in an already uneven season. I have an inkling they will get upset by Liberty, but, if they don’t, they probably could actually make the semis against Lincoln. Yabi Aklog is mechanical and sometimes dominates the ball too much and that won’t play against Mt. Spokane’s front court.
8. (12) Liberty: It would be exciting to watch Jackson Whitaker take the Patriots a couple rounds into the bracket. That would mean he provided offensive fireworks the likes of shooting past Garfield, Seattle Prep, and Central Valley to reach the Tacoma Dome. He’d have to do so against Eastside Catholic’s Tytan McNeal, the Metro League’s defensive player of the year. Senior guard Mason Chin and Tyson Burley both chip in 14 ppg.
7. (5) Bellarmine Prep: The Lions shocked Rainier Beach last year and, time was, it could be argued that the Lions were the 2nd or 3rd best team in the state this year. But they lost shooter extraordinaire Kade Price to an ACL tear and, though they shocked Eastside Catholic in Round 2, they have fallen below fellow Tacomans Lincoln at this point in the season. G Ronnie Wiggins is a dynamic scorer and Ben and Luke Heisel provide inside presence.
6. (9) Auburn Mountainview: The Lions get up and down the court, play tough defense, and have a smooth, explosive scorer in lefty senior Kolven Posey. That should be enough to get by Bellevue, but they hit a roadblock in the Abes from Lincoln in the quarterfinals. Auburn Mountainview opened its doors in 2006 and this is its first trip to the Tacoma Dome. The Lions are a good bet for a placement in their debut visit.
5. (2) O’Dea: Maybe the Irish have the second-best team in the state, but they won’t be able to prove it. Their disastrous loss to Lincoln means they meet Rainier Beach in the quarters, assuming they take care of Shorewood in the round of 12. But the fourth time won’t be a charm against the Vikings. O’Dea cannot run with Beach, forcing the Irish to go smaller, which is too smaller than the Vikings’ “small,” so they get bullied by Tyran Stokes and now RB has JJ Crawford for good measure.
4. (6) Prairie: Hidden away in the southwestern part of the state, the Falcons are a team nobody sees coming. They’ve got 6-8 senior Carson Morningstar, who averages 24 points and 13 rebounds and was the Greater St. Helens League player of the year. Guard Ben Nkansah was the league’s defensive player of the year and Malachi Patton supplies outside firepower. They might find themselves in a semifinal date with Rainier Beach, against whom they are simply overmatched. A 24-point loss in January to Bellevue is a stain on their record.
3. (3) Mt.Spokane: It’s difficult to figure if the Wildcats are overrated because they dominate in a basketball no-man’s land. They have a very early season win over Bellarmine Prep at full strength, but a stretch of losses to three straight good teams — Mount Si, O’Dea, and Glacier Peak — is concerning. However, they held the fort all season while Colorado State commit Jaden Ghoreishi was out with blood clots in his lungs and 6-6 Tysen Lewis helped them do it, averaging 11 points, 6 boards. Now they form a formidable front-line tandem.
2. (7) Lincoln (Tacoma): O’Dea may have laid an egg during the Round 2 loss to Lincoln, but the Abes have been a train traveling downhill to position themselves to capitalize. They are a young team riding a wave of burgeoning confidence, enough to rock Auburn Mountainview, our sixth re-seed by 31 before taking down the Irish. Davion Shareef-Dulaney and Justus Holt are as good a sophomore combo as there is in the state, and the Abes are upstarts with a chip on their shoulders for playing second fiddle to Seattle teams.
1. (1) Rainier Beach: There’s just no way of seeing anyone likely in the Vikings’ path — Prairie, Bellarmine Prep, O’Dea, Mt. Spokane or Lincoln — have the wherewithal to bother them much. No team can match their overall size and length or speed. Tyran Stokes isn’t just the best prospect in his class, he’s the best player in the nation and, if all else fails, he can just put the Beach Boys on his back. With JJ Crawford back, and Marques and Micah Ili-Meneese vital contributors from last year’s champions, and a whole host of other talented underclassmen, this could be the easiest stretch of the season for Stokes.
BEACH AT STATE 3A
The Shoes of Ili-Meneese Make a Difference
Viks Led by a Freshman and a Sixth Man
MORE 3A FAN GUIDES
Watch Wednesday’s South Seattle Emerald for Beach’s “Family Business”