Forget the NCAA Tournament.
Alaska's own thrilling version of March Madness is in full swing.
Sixth-seeded Kenai Central became the first boys team from the Kenai Peninsula since 1998 to win a first-round game at the Class 4A state basketball tournament when the Kardinals overcame a fourth-quarter dry spell of 5 minutes, 10 seconds, sent the game to overtime with a pair of 3-pointers in the final 38 seconds and held on to defeat third-seeded Dimond 74-73 on Thursday at West High School in Anchorage.
"We just started to really believe in each other. We're a team. We do everything together," said senior Daniel Gustkey, who hit six 3-pointers en route to a game-high 29 points. "That's what this group's all about, perseverance, keeping together with what we do and look where we are."
That would be the semifinals, where the Kardinals will take on second-seeded Bartlett at 6:45 p.m. today at Sullivan Arena.
"We have confidence in each other," Gustkey added. "We know that we can put the ball in the hole and we know we can play defense and we know we're a good basketball team. Some people don't believe it but hopefully they'll believe it now."
The Kardinals made believers out of nearly everybody packed into the cozy confines of the West gymnasium after snapping an eight-game losing streak by peninsula boys teams in Class 4A state tourney action.
Trailing by seven at halftime after the Lynx (23-6) hit 61 percent of their shots in the opening 16 minutes, Kenai emerged from the locker room looking like a completely different team, aside from the bleached blond or blackened hair every player sported as a sign of team unity.
Cory Toombs, one of nine seniors on the squad, scored four of his 18 points in the first 2:14 of the quarter and Gustkey sank three treys, two from NBA distance and one from the corner, that capped an emphatic, game-altering 17-2 charge to begin the third.
"That's the first thing that they said when we walked in the locker room is, 'We're only down seven. We can come back from this,'" said Kenai coach Jim Beeson, who was at the helm when the Kardinals became the last team to win a first-round game, beating West Valley, 50-42. "And obviously we haven't been a great third-quarter team, so to come out and play the way we did at the beginning of the third quarter was huge."
The Kardinals (19-7) then carried a three-point lead into the fourth and extended it as many as 11 on two different occasions „ the first when Toombs converted on a slicing, acrobatic layup and senior Nate Saltzgiver followed 22 seconds later with one of Kenai's 11 treys, and the latter when Gustkey canned a foul-line jumper over the outstretched arms of a Dimond defender at the 5:48 mark of the fourth.
Kenai, however, wouldn't find the bottom of the net again until there were only 38 ticks left on the clock.
The Lynx, meanwhile, strung together a 16-0 run led by senior Ryan Whilden, who netted six of his team-high 21 points „ the final two on a pair of free throws with 56 seconds to play „ that staked last year's third-place team to a fragile 64-58 lead.
But Kenai wasn't about to go down that easily in its first trip to the big dance since 2002, when they went two-and-out.
Corralling a loose ball after a missed 3 by Toombs, the Kardinals circulated the ball to the corner for Nate Byrd, who calmly made it a one possession game after hitting just two of his previous 11 shots up to that point.
"Honestly, I didn't think," said Byrd, who's been to the Class 2A state tournament as a member of Cook Inlet Academy. "It was just another shot. I always think they're going to go in. It doesn't matter if I miss. It's just something that I'm going to cherish for the rest of my life."
Then it was the other Nate's turn.
After Toombs trapped Whilden in the corner off the inbounds pass, forcing him to wildly throw the ball out of bounds „ the 12th turnover of the game for the Lynx „ Saltzgiver drained a 3-pointer from the corner with 18 seconds left, which subsequently sent the game to overtime when junior Ryan Hanley (15 points) missed a floater at the buzzer.
"We all can shoot the ball. We all rely on each other. Everyone can shoot the 3," Toombs said. "You've got to get it to whoever's open and believe whoever's open is going to make it."
Kenai fell behind by two in the four-minute extra session when Chris Plooy scored four of his 14 points, but Byrd answered with pull-up jumper just inside the arc in knotting it at 70 with two minutes left.
A 4-for-6 performance from the foul line down the stretch, three coming from Gustkey, coupled with three missed shots by Dimond gave the Kardinals a comfortable four-point edge with only 16 seconds to play.
A 3 from Hanley with four seconds remaining trimmed it to one, but with no timeouts, Dimond was forced to watch as the Kardinals drained the final seconds off the clock by not inbounding the ball, sparking a jubilant celebration from all corners of the arena.
"It's just a testament to these kids that they won the basketball game," Beeson said. "They showed up and there wasn't many people that believed that they were going to win the basketball game, except for our group. They did the things all the last two weeks to get ready to play, to perform and do it and they did a great job.
"We shot the ball as well as we've shot the ball," he added. "That certainly helped."
So did having an entire starting lineup comprised of seniors as well as four more on the bench.
"We're writing the final chapter in the book for those seniors. How do you want that chapter to be written and what do you want it took like?" Beeson said. "They want to go out with a positive ending and win a basketball game that they're not supposed to win and we went out and did it (Thursday)."
After coming up shy in last season's conference tournament and not earning what had been an expected state berth, Saltzgiver and Toombs sat in the Sullivan Arena stands watching as Colony followed up its remarkable and equally shocking conference finals run with a state finals trip before coming up shy against Wasilla.
This year, they'll be participating.
"They knew they were coming to play this year instead of coming to watch. Last year we thought we were going to get here and we didn't," Beeson said. "So, that really motivated us this year to get here and once we got here, we represented ourselves fairly well so far."
"We kept that feeling inside and played hard," Toombs added of last year's disappointment.
The Kardinals trailed 19-16 entering the second quarter after 6-foot-4 junior Colton Lauwers (15 points, 11 rebounds) ran off seven straight points in a little over a minute, capping a 57 percent performance from the floor by the Lynx in the opening eight minutes.
Another 8-0 spurt by Dimond extended the lead to 29-20 before Zach Beeson beat the Lynx press down the floor for an easy two and Gustkey followed with a deep trey in slicing the deficit to five.
"Daniel's very capable of doing that," coach Beeson said. "He got in a rhythm and just shot the ball extremely well (Thursday), and hopefully that continues."
Dominating the low post over the course of the first half, Hanley found a streaking Plooy, who darted through the lane for an easy dunk with four seconds left in sending Dimond into the break leading 34-27.
"We could have easily rolled over and been done," Beeson said. "But we didn't."
The Kardinals now have another tall task looming in front of them in second-seeded Bartlett (20-6), champions of the Cook Inlet Conference. The Golden Bears easily handled Lathrop 64-37 on Thursday morning.
"I'm going to get some tape on them," Beeson said, "and we're going to sit down and try to figure out what we can do to be competitive and hang around and see if we can't win it at the end again."
High School Sports