Olympia slips by Spanaway Lake in OT to stay alive in 4A WCD tournament

It took an extra four minutes on Monday, but Olympia will play another game in the Class 4A West Central District tournament.

The Bears slipped by Spanaway Lake, 63-56, in overtime on Monday at Stadium High School in a loser-out game.

And, by the end of it, Olympia coach John Kiley was a little shaken up.

“Everything’s not in a good spot right now,” he joked. “Heart rate is up. I’m just so proud of the guys. We battled tonight.”

The Bears carried a narrow lead midway through the third quarter before Spanaway Lake climbed back.

“It felt like punch, counter punch,” Kiley said.

The teams traded buckets late in the fourth before Hunter Sipe — who scored a game-high 21 points — made a contested layup with one minute, 16 seconds to go to give Olympia a four-point lead.

“Our season was on the line,” Sipe said. “That really (created) a lot of urgency.”

But the Sentinels would even it again. Divante Moffitt banked in a short jumper with 36.5 seconds to send the game into overtime tied at 54-54.

Kiley said it was similar to Friday night’s 53-42 loss against Kentwood, which sent the Bears to the loser-out game. Olympia had a commanding lead against the Conquerors, only to watch it slip away late.

This time, the outcome was different.

“You hope to learn from every situation, and I thought Friday night Kentwood did a great job of really clamping down on us in the fourth quarter,” Kiley said. “So, tonight, we got into that situation, we talked about making some adjustments.”

Enough adjustments were made in the overtime period.

Eddie Beusch netted the game-winning 3-pointer from the left corner with 2:17 to go, and the Bears went on a 9-2 run to seal it.

Liam Murphy tacked on 13 points for Olympia, while Beusch added nine.

“We knew we were coming into a good game,” Sipe said. “We obviously wanted to win by more in the first part of the game, but when it came down to it, we had to pull through and pull in as a team, and we got the win.”

One more of those gets Olympia a berth to the regional round of the 4A state tournament.

“We’d like to win a few more than that,” Kiley said. “One more gets to the next door.”

Olympia (19-4) plays 4A Narrows League rival Timberline (14-8) in a loser-out, winner-to-state game at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Stadium. Olympia won both of the regular season meetings.

“This next game is going to be huge,” Sipe said. “It’s going to show us what we can do.”

This story was originally published February 16, 2016 at 11:11 AM with the headline "Olympia slips by Spanaway Lake in OT to stay alive in 4A WCD tournament."