TACOMA — The first boys basketball game at the Class 4A and 3A state tournaments at the Tacoma Dome could end up being the best.
Senior Trey Crandall made a short jumper in the lane with 1.6 seconds remaining in overtime, leading Skyline of Sammamish to a 60-59 win over Davis of Yakima on Wednesday morning in a loser-out Class 4A game.
“I didn’t want my career to end,” Crandall said.
It didn’t, thanks to the Skyline boys’ first state tournament win since 2010. Up next for the sixth-seeded Spartans is 9 a.m. matchup Thursday against No. 4 Federal Way.
Skyline (20-7) had good reason to celebrate just getting there, coming back from four points down in overtime.
“Well, it’s really exciting to come down to basically a buzzer-beater,” Skyline coach Josh Martinez said. “The boys played extremely hard. They played great defense, they rebounded, and that gave us the opportunity to win a game at the end.”
Skyline led by as many as 12 points in the first half and led 33-27 at halftime. Davis scored the first 10 points of the second half and neither team took control after that.
The Spartans, playing without injured leading scorer Dylan Reilly (who is out for the tournament, Martinez said), missed a couple of short shots near the end of regulation that could have won the game.
It looked like those missed chances would really hurt when Davis took a 55-51 lead with 3:25 left in overtime. Nahmier Robinson, the son of former UW Husky star and longtime NBA player Nate Robinson, responded with a three-pointer to cut the deficit to one.
Robinson hit another huge shot with 23 seconds left to once again pull the Spartans to one. They got the ball back on a turnover and were working for a shot when Davis forced a jump ball with five seconds left.
Fortunately for Skyline, it had the possession arrow, and it took advantage of another chance. The Spartans got the ball inside to Crandall, who made what he said was the biggest and most exciting shot of his life.
“I knew I was shooting and I put it up with confidence,” said Crandall, who had a team-high 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists.
Martinez was proud, but not surprised his team was resilient, saying the Spartans have displayed that all season.
“They have that character within them,” Martinez said. “They play for four quarters, they play with heart and they play together.”
On Thursday morning, it took even more than four quarters.
Robinson had 15 points and a game-high six assists. Willy Heise added 10 points and a game-high 17 rebounds.
No. 11 Davis (18-6) was looking for its first state tournament victory in eight years and came oh so close to getting it. Cesar Hernandez led the Pirates with a game-high 25 points.
For Skyline, the challenge gets tougher against Federal Way (24-2).
“It will be a fun one,” Martinez said. “They like to get up and down and so do we.”