Greyhound boys storm past Bantams in semis

PULLMAN — Gavyn Dealy pulled down a missed shot from one of his teammates, went up with the ball and missed the shot but grabbed his own rebound. His second putback attempt found the bottom of the net.

It happened in the opening 60 seconds of the Pullman Greyhounds’ 75-39 victory over Clarkston as they hosted the second round of the 2A Greater Spokane League district tournament Tuesday at Pullman High School.

Dealy, a sophomore forward, ended up scoring a game-leading 22 points in the win for Pullman (16-5). He led the charge for the Greyhounds both in scoring and on the glass, with the game being out of reach midway through the second quarter.

With the win, Pullman will face top-seeded West Valley at 5 p.m. Thursday in Spokane Valley for the championship.

“We just had the mindset that we are going to win this game,” Dealy said. “We know if we lose, we go home. We didn’t want to go home when we know we have a shot at that state title.”

The win improved the Greyhounds to 16-5 overall and 9-1 in their last 10 contests. It also completed a sweep of Clarkston (11-12) for the season while raising their average margin of victory to over 23 points per game.

“The rivalry between Clarkston and Pullman over the last 15 years has been fun and special. I think they’ve got the upper hand on us right now so our job now is to get to that level where we’re competing with them,” Clarkston coach Justin Jones said.

Jones said his players got the looks they wanted at the basket in the loss, but just were not able to execute on those looks. After scoring 75 points in their first-round win over Deer Park, the Bantams only had one quarter of being within five points of Pullman.

“Unfortunately, our misses also turned into good transition opportunities for them so it began to snowball,” Jones said. “But at the end of the day, we got the shots we wanted but just were not hitting them at the rate we needed.”

As a team, Clarkson shot 13-for-51 (25.5%) from the field and 9-for-33 (27.3%) from beyond the arc. As the Bantams fell deeper into their deficit, the shots began to come earlier in the shot clock with fewer feet of separation.

Clarkston sophomore guard Niko Ah Hi led his team in scoring with 11 points while shooting 30% from the field and 28.5% from deep.

“We’re young and slightly inexperienced, but this team played and worked their butts off, Jones said. “We have a close group and when you have a close group, you can win games. Tonight, we just didn’t make shots and playoffs are all about makes and misses.”

On the other side, Pullman shot 32-for-57 (56.1%) from the field and 6-for-17 (35.3%) from deep. The team’s 75 points came off the hands of nine different players, with Dealy, Daniel Kwon (16 points) and Brandon Brown (10) all scoring in double digits.

Evan Anderson also added eight points for the Greyhounds, all of which came in the first quarter.

“We did well with spreading the rock around,” Kwon said. “We can and want to get everyone involved on offense and we executed that today.”

All night, Dealy seemed to have the easiest time scoring. His frame down low had been clearly unmatched by the Clarkston defense.

“He’s been one of the best bigs all year in the whole league. Really happy to see his hard work paying off,” Kwon said.

Next up for Pullman is another matchup with West Valley. The two programs have split the season series, each winning on the road. Between the two contests, Pullman leads overall in point differential by a single point.

“We’ll find success if we share the ball and keep boxing out like we did tonight,” Dealy said. “We cleaned up our biggest weaknesses and it felt good tonight to get a win off that.”

As for Clarkston, its season concludes at 11-12 with what coach Jones said were many ups and downs.

“I’m excited about the kids I have in my program right now. I feel like we have something brewing at Clarkston basketball again and I’m really excited about that,” Jones said. “The kids are really connected and work extremely hard and have a thirst to compete. I’m hopeful we can start winning meaningful games next season.”

Clarkston (11-12)

Isaiah Woods 2 0-0 6, Lee Brown 0 0-0 0, Braxton Forsmann 1 0-0 3, Jake Stewart 0 0-0 0, Niko Ah Wi 3 3-4 11, Otis Phillips 0 0-0 0, Josh Hoffman 2 0-0 4, Kendry Gimlin 3 1-2 9, Jason Rinard 2 0-0 6. Totals 13 4-6 39.

Pullman (16-5)

Gavyn Dealy 10 2-2 22, Cade Rogers 2 0-0 4, Daniel Kwon 8 0-0 16, Vaughn Holstad 2 0-0 5, Daniel Liaina 1 0-0 2, Parker Lee 0 0-0 0, Adrian Hecker 0 0-0 0, Brandon Brown 3 3-4 10, Owen Brannan 1 0-0 2, Ryan Ha 2 0-0 6, Carson Forar 0 0-0 0, Evan Anderson 2 0-0 8.

Totals 32 5-6 75.

Clarkston 8 5 16 10—39

Pullman 19 19 21 15—75

3-point goals — Woods 2, Ah Hi 2, Gimlin 2, Rinard 2, Forsmann, Ha 2, Anderson 2, Holstad, Brown.