Mercer Island saw its eight-game winning streak come to an end Tuesday night, as the Lake Washington Kangs spoiled senior night with a 48-42 win over the Islanders in their KingCo conference finale at Mercer Island High School.
The Islanders (13-7, 11-3 in KingCo) had an opportunity to win the KingCo 3A title outright with a victory, but still finished the regular season as co-league champions with Bellevue (15-5, 11-3) and earned the league’s top seed heading into the KingCo postseason tournament. The share of the KingCo title is Mercer Island’s first league championship since 2013.
“We got a KingCo banner, which was super awesome and thrilling and important for us,” Mercer Island coach Gavin Cree said. “We would’ve liked to finish it off tonight, but we didn’t and so we talked about, ‘How is this gonna make us better?’ Maybe there’s a silver lining that we needed extra motivation moving into the playoffs so that we have a little bit of an edge to us, because our most important games are in front of us.”
Senior guard Sam Linsky went 4-for-4 from the free throw line in the game’s final 19 seconds to ice the contest for Lake Washington (11-8, 7-7). It was familiar territory for Linsky, who sank two late free throws to lift the Kangs over the Islanders last January at MIHS.
“I was thinking déjà vu,” said Linsky, who finished the game with nine points. “Last year at this place, we were down by one and I had a one-and-one. It was just that feeling coming up again. I just kind of felt like, ‘I got this.’ You shoot free throws every day in practice, you just gotta convert.”
Mercer Island led 14-11 after the opening frame but saw the Kangs take a 22-21 advantage into halftime after Beau Heimdahl sank a 3-pointer just before the break.
Lake Washington extended its advantage, scoring the first seven points of the second half before the Islanders fought back with seven straight points of their own to cut the deficit to one midway through the third period.
The Kangs responded with a 13-2 run that stretched into the opening minute of the fourth quarter, with Lake Washington claiming a 42-30 lead. Mercer Island cut the deficit to four on three occasions, but couldn’t get any closer the rest of the way.
Lake Washington big man Griffin Barker led all scorers with 14 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, while teammate Jordan Richter scored 13. Rainer McDonald led Mercer Island with 12 points and Jack Delay scored 11 for the Islanders.
With his team having the KingCo 3A fourth seed locked up prior to Tuesday’s game, Lake Washington coach Ryan Staudacher said he simply wanted to see his team play their game and continue to get better before the start of the postseason.
“For us, it was just about coming out doing what we do, playing our style of basketball and focus completely on getting better at what we’re trying to work on,” Staudacher said. “Our seed was set before the night started, so we just wanted to come out and play our kind of basketball and work on the things that we’re trying to get better at and get ready for the KingCo playoffs.”
Lake Washington will begin KingCo 3A tournament competition with a loser-out contest against Juanita at 7 p.m. Friday at Lake Washington High School. The winner will take on Mercer Island at 7 p.m. Saturday at Mercer Island High School.
