Overachieving Grizzlies came up big: Bear Creek’s third-place finish best in school history | Team of the Year

Published 2:51 pm Tuesday, June 21, 2011

For just about any basketball program – and particularly at a small school in the 2B classification – the graduation of two all-state basketball players usually means at least a year or two of rebuilding.

The Bear Creek Grizzlies, however, turned out to be the exception rather than the rule.

After superstar guard Jamie Meyer (the Reporter’s 2010 Male Athlete of the Year) and fellow senior leaders Kyle Blankenbeckler, an all-state selection, and Michael Davisson graduated, hopes weren’t quite as high for the Grizzlies’ young 2010-11 squad. But in the end, head coach Scott Moe and his hard-working crew of Grizzlies proved the doubters wrong.

The team made a serious run in the second half of the season, winning their third consecutive Tri-District Championship title, and closing their season with a 54-43 win over Colfax to place third at the 2B state basketball tournament in Spokane last March.

For greatly exceeding expectations en route to a record-setting year, the Grizzly boys’ basketball team has been named the Reporter’s Team of the Year.

GROWTH SPURT

According to Moe, the team’s remarkable transformation occurred in January, after a tough stretch of games where the Grizzlies got torn apart by stronger teams in the Bellevue College Holiday Tournament. In total, the team lost three of four non-league contests to end the year, including a 65-43 rout by Sammamish.

“Every year we try to make our schedule as tough as possible,” explained Moe, adding that, at the time, it was good to get “beat up” by better competition. “You don’t get better by beating someone by 30 points. When you play someone that’s bigger and faster than you, it really exposes areas that you need to improve on.”

It was at that point that the Grizzlies realized they couldn’t rest on their laurels if they wanted to achieve great things when the postseason rolled around.

Playing with a renewed intensity, the team reeled off 14 straight wins in the new year, completing a perfect 12-0 season in Sea-Tac 2B league play.

“It’s always fun to see a team improve over the course of the season, but we went from good to being REALLY good,” Moe said. “Something clicked, kids bought into their roles and really started excelling. It was fun to watch.”

Once at state, the Grizzlies faced their first bit of adversity since the holidays, losing one of the lowest-scoring games in state tournament history, a 35-33 setback to Adna.

On the way back from Mount Vernon, the team bus, carrying a crew of weary Grizzlies, came across a bad wreck in Redmond around midnight and were the first on the scene, assisting in any way they could until paramedics arrived.

The next day, playing a loser-out game, the Grizzlies roared back to life, hitting 13 of 20 three pointers in a 73-49 win over Northwest Christian.

“Two people were hurt seriously…(the accident) was really traumatic,” recalled Moe. “For our guys to bounce back the next day, in a loser-out game, it showed a lot about the character of our group.”

That character was tested one final time in the 3rd-5th place game against a toughened Colfax team.

In a game that had twists and turns until the final buzzer, the Grizzlies mounted an incredible fourth-quarter charge, breaking a 38-38 tie with an 8-0 run that sealed an eventual 54-43 win.

After placing fifth at state twice in the last three years, the team’s two graduating seniors, Ryan Strandin and Lucas Peterson (right), were glad to hold the third-place trophy.

“Senior year we finally pull out third place, just to show we’ve left our mark and improved the program over time,” Strandin said. “That means a lot to both of us.”

Added Peterson, “People thought we lost so much (talent) and we couldn’t come back as strong. We showed that we could come back, and exceed what we had accomplished in the past.”

SUPER FANS, SUPER KIDS

The culture of basketball at Bear Creek is perhaps unlike any other at the 2B level, as Grizzly supporters packed the stands in the school gymnasium at every home game.

“We had the best fans in the state by far,” Peterson marveled. “The atmosphere they created was amazing, to have the whole school behind you.”

Moe noted that his program is blessed not only with a great fan/parent base, but a dedicated coaching staff, which includes mainstays Scott Nelson and Russ Schoene, and an incredibly supportive administration.

But most importantly, it was the kids that made Bear Creek Basketball something special to be a part of this season.

“Our seniors turned into great leaders,” said Moe, adding that he had both Peterson and Strandin as P.E. students when they were in seventh grade. “To see them go from little kids and grow, not only physically but also mature emotionally and socially… they ended up being great kids, and I had a great time with them.”

The Grizzlies also got huge contributions from a talented group of underclassmen, led by junior Erik Domas, who was out injured most of his sophomore year and scored a total of five points.

“He worked so hard in the offseason on his body, getting bigger, stronger and faster,” Moe said of Domas, who averaged nearly seven points per game last winter while shining on the defensive end.

In addition, hot-shooting freshman Luke Blankenbeckler put on a show from the outside all season long, averaging 10 points a game while setting a school record with 78 three-pointers, and junior Lucas Fernandez, who would have started on any other team in the 2B league, came up big off the bench as an imposing sixth man.

With the graduation of Peterson and Strandin, who also were named to the all-state team, the Grizzlies’ future is as uncertain as it was at the end of the 2009-10 season. All in all, however, the Grizzlies’ success last winter proved that with a lot of heart, hard work and leadership, anything is possible.

“In the last two years now, we’ve graduated four all-staters,” Moe noted. “Our kids are committed and want to get better, so if we stay on this path, I don’t know how far it’ll take us. Last year’s team far exceeded expectations. Let that be a lesson learned I guess – maybe I need to dream a little bigger.”