YAKIMA – You can never count out the Comeback Cougars.
One day after overcoming a 17-point deficit to extend its season, Seton Catholic nearly pulled off a bigger comeback in the quarterfinals of the Class 1A boys basketball state tournament.
Trailing by 21 points in the third quarter, Seton Catholic lost to reigning state champ Zillah 61-59 on a buzzer-beating putback Thursday at the Yakima Valley SunDome.
Hope was dim for the No. 6 seed Cougars, who trailed 50-30 to the No. 5 Leopards with two minutes left in the third quarter. But this team was far from done, not with four senior starters back from last year along with sophomore Trico League MVP Kaiden Wilson.
Confidence in a comeback was high for Seton. Wednesday, the Cougars overcame a 17-point third-quarter deficit to beat Cashmere 68-61 in a loser-out Round of 12 game.
“The level of trust is just different,” said senior guard Rico George. “Going out of our huddles in those last couple of minutes, we were telling each other ‘let it fly.’ Any opening, just let that ball fly. That’s the level of trust that we have in each other to make shots. Luckily some of them fell. It just wasn’t enough.”
George scored 17 points, including three baskets in quick succession early in the fourth quarter to spark Seton’s momentum.
Wilson then took over down the stretch. He shook off a rough first half, in which he was 3 of 14 from the field, and played most of the fourth quarter with four fouls.
But that didn’t put a damper on the 6-foot-6 shooting guard. Wilson scored 11 of his 25 points in the final four minutes, including Seton’s last eight points.
“He’s one of a kind,” George said of Wilson. “He can do pretty much anything. Not a lot of weaknesses. What we saw in our gameplan is that they didn’t have anyone who could match up with him both size-wise and speed-wise. Down the stretch we were like ‘give it to Kaiden, get out of the way and let him go to work.’ ”
Wilson hit a jumper to tie the game 57-57 with under a minute to play. Zillah then went to its star Dekker Van De Graaf, who put the Leopards ahead 59-57 and finished with 28 points.
Wilson countered, drawing a foul and hitting two free throws to tie the game with 19.6 seconds to play.
Zillah drew up its final play, getting the ball to River Buck for a mid-range attempt in the final seconds. The shot missed, but Memphis Jones slashed through the key for a putback basket just before the final buzzer sounded.
“It came down to a rebound and it bounced the other way,” Seton coach Donald Wilson said. “You could look at a couple things, if we could have got this or that. But a hell of a game.”
After placing sixth last year, Seton Catholic still hopes to earn the second state trophy in program history. The next step arrives at 12:15 p.m. Friday in the fourth-place semifinal against No. 7 seed Meridian.
ZILLAH 61, SETON CATHOLIC 59
SETON CATHOLIC (19-7) — Tyler Tran 0, Mason Glassmire 3, Brady Angelo 9, Lance Lee 5, Roberto Valdez 0, Kaiden Wilson 25. Totals 22 (7) 8-11 59.
ZILLAH (21-4) — Jayden Saenz 0, Julian Calzada 3, RJ Curfman 0, Memphis Jones 21, River Buck 5, X Castilleja 4, Dekker Van De Graaf 28, Jaxon Maras 0. Totals 24 (7) 6-10 61.
Seton Catholic 9 11 16 23 — 59
Zillah 11 20 21 9 — 61
