Olympia overcomes early deficit to sweep Bellarmine Prep for first time since 2001

Olympia High School’s boys basketball program hasn’t had this type of success against Bellarmine Prep since the turn of the century.

For the past 16 seasons, the Bears have either dropped both games in their season series against the Lions (nine times) or split it (seven times).

That frustrating streak ended Tuesday night in Tacoma.

Olympia overcame an early deficit in the first quarter, and pushed its lead to double digits in the second half to notch the 53-40 victory, and completed the sweep over the Lions for the first time since the 2000-01 season.

The Bears won the first leg, 61-47, in December in Olympia.

“All of the seniors, this was a crazy fight for them, it’s all they wanted and all they talked about since the last game,” said sophomore Ethan Gahm, who led the Bears with nine points.

“It was a big win. They fought. We all fought, and fought harder than I’ve seen us fight in a while. It’s good to sweep them.”

Early on, though, it didn’t look like the sweep would happen.

Bellarmine jumped out to a 15-4 lead in the first six minutes, led by Austin Ostrander, who scored nine of his game-high 15 points during that stretch.

“We just weren’t in sync that first quarter,” Gahm said. “We couldn’t get an offense going.”

The Bears managed a string of three unanswered baskets to close out the first quarter as part of a 21-6 run that gave them a four-point lead by the break.

Taylor Mastin’s basket with 1:33 remaining in the second quarter gave Olympia a lead the Lions never recovered from.

The Bears held Bellarmine to six points apiece in the second and third quarters to pull away. The Lions made a final run early in the fourth quarter, but never cut the lead to less than two possessions.

Olympia (12-6, 9-5) moves into third place in the 4A SPSL standings with the win, and has two games against Rogers (12-4, 9-3) and at Puyallup (11-6, 8-5) remaining on the schedule.

Bellarmine (9-8, 8-5) drops into a tie for fourth with Puyallup with the loss.

The Bears are still in contention to host in the first round of the district playoffs if they can jump the Rams in the standings in the next two weeks.

“We’ve got two games left, we’ve got to win them both and hopefully host a playoff game,” Gahm said.

This story was originally published January 23, 2018 at 10:25 PM with the headline "Olympia overcomes early deficit to sweep Bellarmine Prep for first time since 2001."