The Hudson’s Bay Eagles needed just a few minutes to figure out that the best way to get over their loss Friday night was to just forget about it.
“We’ve gotta bounce back from this,” Bay sophomore Derrick Brooks said. “It was a tough loss, but it’s in the past now.”
It will be hard for them to erase the image of Darius Page from their minds, though.
Page, a 6-foot-8 senior post player, led Foster of Tukwila with 34 points as the Bulldogs clinched a berth to the Class 3A boys state tournament with a 71-56 victory at Hudson’s Bay.
The Eagles fell into the consolation bracket of the bi-district tournament. Bay will play Tuesday against Mount Rainier at Auburn High School. The winner of that game will advance to state.
“We wasted this opportunity,” Bay coach Andy Meyer said. “We just have to move forward.”
Page scored 10 of Foster’s 30 points in the fourth quarter as the Bulldogs pulled away from a close contest with the Eagles.
TreVaunte Williams, a freshman, added 14 points and 13 rebounds for Foster.
Page finished 14 of 21 from the floor and 6 of 7 from the line. He also had 12 rebounds.
“He was decent,” Brooks said with a smile. “He was decent.”
Brooks was pretty good, too, for the Eagles, scoring 22 points on 9-of-13 shooting. He scored 10 points in the first quarter, then had to deal with constant pressure from Foster defenders the rest of the night.
Tra Ponder scored eight of his 10 points in the final quarter for Hudson’s Bay, including the first five of the period to give the Eagles a 45-43 lead.
Foster, though, responded with a 12-3 run. Mohamed Osman made two 3-pointers in the spurt to give the Bulldogs the lead for good.
The Eagles pushed the pace, but Foster was too strong down the stretch.
“We had a bad quarter,” Meyer said. “We tried to turn up the heat a little bit, and it opened the gap a little bit.”
Darius Goldman added 11 points for Hudson’s Bay.
