RAINIER — Jordan Hunt’s young group has been a couple of plays away from shaking up the Central 2B League standings on multiple occasions in his first season as Rainier’s head coach.
The Mountaineers were as close as ever Thursday night against Toutle Lake on senior night. In a game that saw no lead larger than seven, Rainier had a chance to send the game to overtime on a last-second Kaysen Bravo layup, but the bank shot fell short and Toutle Lake escaped with a 58-56 win on the road in a back-and-forth thriller.
“I’m just glad we were in that spot. That’s how we learn,” Hunt said. “I’ve always felt that I know where this team can go. I think we’re now starting to see the girls start to believe it, and once they believe it, that’s when the wins start coming.”
Rainier inserted all three of its seniors — Zaylee Bravo, Anika Plowman and Katelyn Eckroth — into its starting lineup on senior night. Hunt wanted to get two sets of sisters in the starting lineup: Katelyn and Courtney Eckroth, and Zaylee and Kaysen Bravo.
It was undoubtedly the plan for Hunt to take a timeout early in the game to get Lexi Beckman and Alexis Myers onto the floor, but it certainly was not the plan for Rainier to already be down 4-0 90 seconds in.
Lainey Dean and Kendal Dean scored 17 of Toutle Lake’s first 19 points as the Ducks held a 19-13 advantage through the first quarter. The Mountaineers took their first lead of the night through an 8-0 run early in the second quarter, led by a couple of buckets from Courtney Eckroth and a putback layup by Beckman.
After the Ducks led 21-15 in the opening seconds of the second period, Rainier went on a 15-2 run to jump in front 30-23. But 3-pointers by Payton Thayer and Lainey Dean, the latter coming in the final seconds, gave Toutle Lake momentum into the locker room, yet Rainier led 32-31 at halftime.
Fireworks kicked off the second half, with Myers and Thayer trading treys within 16 seconds of action resuming. Toutle Lake retook the lead by way of turning Rainier over and Thayer catching fire from deep. She tallied nine points in the third quarter with two triples.
A circus layup off the glass by Kaysen Bravo turned into an and-one, stopping Toutle Lake’s brief spurt. The sophomore then hit a go-ahead layup with 12 seconds left in the third before Dean nailed two free throws to put Toutle Lake back in front 45-44 heading to the final stanza.
The Ducks’ gameplan to start quarters was often to feed Thayer, and she rewarded that decision. She canned back-to-back 3-pointers in the first minute of the fourth to give Toutle Lake its biggest lead at 51-44.
“They shot the lights out,” Hunt said. “Those girls can really hoop.”
Down 53-46 with 6:33 to go, Rainier chipped away and ran its offense through its post players. Plowman and Beckman converted on layups in the paint to bring the Mountaineers within three. Zaylee Bravo spun away from a defender for a layup to make it a one-point game, and Beckman swatted a shot on one end before securing the go-ahead layup with 1:54 remaining.
Rainier’s posts came in clutch again as Plowman played wide receiver for quarterback Beckman, whose long pass found the open senior streaking for the layup. Trailing 56-53 and the clock running under a minute, the Ducks gave the ball to the hot hand, as Thayer delivered a gym-silencing 3-pointer to tie the game at 56 with 50.2 seconds left.
On the ensuing possession, Zaylee Bravo was called for an offensive foul while bringing the ball up the court, and Plowman committed a foul on a Lainey Dean drive with 14.1 seconds to go. Dean sank both free throws, putting Toutle Lake in front by two.
With 7.6 ticks left, the ball found the hands of Kaysen Bravo. She drove hard to the right into the paint, hoisted an awkward floater, looking to spin it off the glass as she had done successfully in the third quarter. But it clanked off the glass and rolled off the right side of the rim as the buzzer sounded.
“We ran a play we planned in practice, and I thought we executed it and got a pretty good look,” Hunt said. “We need a clean four-quarter game. There’s still lapses. Great teams just don’t have those stretches of mental errors. We want to have a game where we look like a veteran group.”
In three of Rainier’s five C2BL losses this season, the Mountaineers (7-11, 1-5 C2BL) lost by eight points or fewer and were within one or two possessions in the fourth quarter. Two weeks ago, the Mountaineers couldn’t get their offense going against either Onalaska or Toledo but played strong enough defense to give themselves a chance.
Despite the loss, Hunt believes Thursday’s game against Toutle Lake can be the necessary spark heading into the final regular season matchup Saturday against Mossyrock (10-7, 0-5 C2BL) and into the District 4 2B Tournament, which begins next weekend.
The Mountaineers roster looks plenty different from its district title run a season ago, but Hunt is confident that Rainier can do some damage in February.
“After tonight, this locker room believes that we can do something,” Hunt said.
