Loss leaves Raiders taking longer road at state

The Napavine Tigers upset the Lake Roosevelt Raiders in the first round of the state tournament Saturday in Wenatchee, where turnovers favored the Tigers and many of LR's scoring attempts bounced off.

The loss for Raiders, seeded third into the tournament, disappointed Coach Jeremy Crollard who thought the LR team would do better against Napavine, seeded sixth.

"I expected more from a team who has been to state the last three years and has the experience, so knows what it takes to win," Crollard said after the game.

"Napavine came out, they played harder than we did in the first half, and that was the difference in the game," he said. "The boys can't wait until the last few minutes of the game to start showing what I know they can do ... the whole game."

The Raiders scored as much in the last quarter, 21, as they did in the first two with 14 and 7. The Tigers held them to seven points in the third quarter, too. The Raiders made six of 11 shots from the free-throw line and sunk five three-pointers.

The loss allowed the team just one practice, on Monday, before taking off Tuesday for Spokane to play in the "Round of 12" portion of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association State 2B Basketball Tournament today (Wednesday, March 1) at 9 a.m. against the Wahkiakum Mules from the southwest corner of the state.

A win against the 11th-seeded Mules would send them to the quarterfinals in a game against the fourth-seeded Columbia-Burnbank Coyotes at 9 a.m. Thursday. Winning that would pit them in the semifinals Friday against either top-seeded Davenport or whoever had beat them on Thursday.

A Raider loss in Spokane on Wednesday or Thursday would end their season.

Winning all three of those games would send the Raiders to the championship game at 9 p.m. Saturday. A loss in the semifinals Friday would still let them compete in games Saturday for either third or fifth place, or for fourth or sixth.