The Bear Creek School boys’ basketball team came back from a fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Waitsburg-Prescott Cardinals in overtime, 58-47, in the quarterfinals of the 2B state tournament at Veteran’s Memorial Arena in Spokane on Thursday afternoon.

With the win, the Grizzlies seal a spot in the state semifinals tonight against Napavine (21-3)  at 5:30 p.m..

“It’s a tough matchup,” said Moe about tonight’s game. “They’ve got a lot of good shooters, good guards, and a beast that plays inside.”

Down 41-37 with under five minutes to play in regulation against the Cardinals, the Grizzlies battled back to force overtime as senior forward Ryan Strandin scored the game-tying bucket with 35 seconds left.

“Our mindset was to pound the rock inside,” explained head coach Scott Moe. “Our bigs, they got the job done at the end of the fourth quarter there and in overtime.”

In the overtime period, the Grizzlies dominated. Erik Domas drained a pair of free throws to open up a 51-47 advantage with just under two minutes remaining, and Strandin all but sealed the win with a bucket to make it 53-47 with 41 seconds left.

Waitsburg-Prescott shot a combined 0 for 10 in overtime.

Key for the Grizzlies was their performance from the free-throw line, as they made a total of 20 free throws due to the Cardinals’ foul trouble.

“We’ve been working on the all year,” Moe said. “We had a shootaround today at Gonzaga and we put up a lot of free throws.”

Strandin, who scored seven points in overtime, led the team with a huge double-double of 20 points and 20 rebounds, followed by Domas with 13 points and 11 rebounds.

To view the 2B boys’ basketball brackets, click here:  2B Brackets

To view a live play-by-play scoring feed from the 2B tournament go here and click on “Webcast” under the Schedule section on the right side of the page:  Cybersports Webcast