TUMWATER — For the Black Hills boys basketball team, the final minute of the Pioneer Bowl came down to trust.
“Trusting your teammates, knocking down big shots,” senior Simon Nysted said. “Trusting our defense, trusting our coaches. Just do anything to get the dub.
“And we showed it on that last possession, trying to get a rebound.”
With 2.6 seconds left, Tumwater missed what could have been a game-tying free throw, and chaos broke out underneath the basket. Freshman James Morgan went up for the rebound, but Tumwater’s Jacob Dillon went over him to get to the ball first, flinging it up in the air. As it came down, Jace Cedergreen — listed at 6 feet — went up against 6-foot-4 Clay Morgan, and somehow managed to keep it out of his hands.
Finally, with Dillon and Morgan closing in, Jack Ellison got his mitts on the ball and proceeded to throw it as high as he could, sealing the Wolves’ dramatic 58-57 win as the final horn sounded and the Black Hills student second cascaded onto their rivals’ court in a sea of navy and red.
“That was just heart,” Nysted said.
It’s the first Pioneer Bowl win for the Wolves (7-6, 3-2 2A EvCo) since the COVID-19 season in June 2021, and the first league loss for the Thunderbirds (4-6, 3-1 2A EvCo) in nearly two years.
And Black Hills did it despite a massive height difference, coming in a good head shorter than Tumwater at nearly every position — and that was before the 6-foot, 4-inch Ellison had to miss most of the first half in foul trouble.
The Wolves went into halftime with just seven total rebounds, and finished the night losing the battle on the glass 28-18. But after falling in a 14-7 hole early in the first quarter, they came back to keep things within two possessions either way.
“The biggest thing for us is knowing that we can get down against a very good basketball team and battle back,” Black Hills coach Jeff Gallagher said. “That’s been a struggle for us this year — when we’ve gotten down, we haven’t been able to fight our way back into games. But we were able to do it tonight against a good basketball team.”
Tumwater went on another run early in the fourth, making it a five-point game with four minutes remaining on a pair of free throws by Sahara Anthony III. But the Wolves stayed the course again and came back with three straight buckets down low among Tumwater’s trees, with Quinton and Talon Morrill scoring buckets before Ellison put the guests ahead on a cut to the hoop with 2:15 left.
The defense got a stop, and the ball got into Nysted’s hands in the corner for the senior’s fourth 3-pointer of the second half.
Nysted finished with a game-high 27 points, burying six triples.
“He calms us,” Gallagher said. “He definitely does. When we’re struggling to get a basket, he can do it. The nice thing with him is that he can create his own shot. Sometimes it looks a little slow coming out, but he’s able to get it off.”
Jake Dillon got Tumwater back within a point with a 3-pointer of his own, and Tumwater got a stop on the ensuing possession to get a chance to take the lead with 27 seconds left — which was immediately snuffed out by an Ellison steal in the post.
“We have a defense called 12, and our top guy is called the ‘Dawg,’” Nysted said. “It was Jack this time, getting the stop. He’s just a dawg.”
James Morgan hit a free throw to stretch the lead to 58-56 with five seconds remaining, but Tumwater got one last breath of hope when Dillon, trying to hit a dagger at the buzzer, drew a foul beyond the arc. He split his first two free throws before missing the third, and Black Hills did enough in the ensuing scramble to cap the win.
Dillon led the T-Birds with 18 points, while Clay Morgan had 10. Beckett Wall finished with 11 rebounds.
The result throws an early wrench into the 2A EvCo standings, with W.F. West now the only unbeaten team in league play.
But for the Wolves, it means a whole lot more, and a lot more immediately, capping off the sort of night across the freeway they’ve been waiting for for years.
“(It) means everything,” Nysted said. “Tumwater’s our rival, and it means everything to beat them.”
