KIRKLAND — There was a hint of retro in the air during Saturday’s KingCo Conference semifinals.
The Bothell High boys basketball team came from 11 points down to beat Inglemoor, 44-39, in the Class 4A KingCo tournament at Lake Washington High School. The game featured the league’s best offense — Bothell — against the league’s best defense.
The league’s best defense held the edge in the first half, leading 25-20 and holding the Cougars (16-5) to one of the lowest-scoring halfs of the season.
“It was a typical game for us this year against [Inglemoor],” Bothell coach Ron Bollinger said. “We shot 28 percent, again, low-scoring and physical. That’s old-school KingCo right there.”
Bollinger for Bothell in high school, and he and Inglemoor coach Greg Lowell, who has been coaching the Vikings for nearly three decades, are the longest-tenured coaches in the league. Lowell and Bollinger know old-school.
“He’s got them playing great basketball,” Bollinger said Lowell. “That’s why I voted for him as coach of the year. That’s at the root of basketball right there. It’s not the AAU crap that a lot of guys have to deal with. I love the way they play, and he does such a good job with it. On film it’s fun to watch when they’re playing somebody else. It’s not fun to go against them, it really isn’t.”
Bollinger said several Bothell players, not used to a low-scoring first half, entered the locker room with their heads down. The Cougars have been averaging nearly 70 points per game this season, despite two low-scoring losses to Inglemoor earlier this year.
The Cougars outscored Inglemoor 13-2 in the third quarter, and 18-2 going back to the first half, to gain control of the game heading to the fourth period. Inglemoor (10-11) rallied to get within 33-32 midway through the fourth, but a baseline jumper from Cameron Tyson and a corner 3-pointer from Josh Kollman capped a 7-0 run to put the Cougars up by eight.
Tyson led all scorers with 16 points. Bothell post Jake Medjo had 10 points and nine rebounds, and Kollman scored seven.
Jaxon Peay led Inglemoor with 10 points and seven rebounds and Jack Weyer had nine. Hamilton struggled from t he field, hitting two of nine attempts from the floor and finishing with five points.
Bothell avoided dropping three consecutive games to Inglemoor after losing both games in the regular season. Inglemoor had won seven of the last nine games, but Lowell said the players weren’t overconfident coming into the conference semifinals.
“Anything we get we’re fighting for, so there was zero degree of that,” Lowell said. “I mean, Bothell won the league, so I don’t think there’s anything we can be overconfident about.”
To stay alive, Inglemoor will need to beat Woodinville despite two losses to the Falcons in the regular season. Viking senior Ryan Hamilton, who led Inglemoor with 10 points, didn’t seem bothered by the loss to Bothell — rather, he pointed to improved defense from the Cougars and spoke of “getting back” at Woodinville in the postseason.
“We held [Bothell] to 44 points, we just couldn’t score,” Hamilton said. “I felt like it was one of those days where nobody was hitting. Usually Jack, me or Jalen are scoring a lot more, and none of us were really putting it in the bucket.”
The 44 points is a season-low for Bothell, and was one of the top defensive performances against a KingCo opponent for Inglemoor this season. Lowell was, more or less, on the same page.
“One of the biggest things is we’ve been really good defensively all year,” Lowell said. “And when we’ve shot the ball well, we’ve been really good because we’ve been pretty efficient. Tonight it didn’t go down all the time, but give (Bothell) credit. They played a good second half, and we’ll move on to the next one.”
Inglemoor still has a shot to make the regional round, beginning with a loser-out game against Woodinville at 5 p.m. on Feb. 16 at Lake Washington High School. The winner of that game moves on to play the loser of the tournament title game — either Bothell or Skyline — on Feb. 18.
Bothell, after winning the regular-season title with a 10-4 conference record, moves on to face Skyline for the top KingCo seed to regionals at 8 p.m. on Feb. 16 at Lake Washington High School.
Despite the high expectations and a blowout loss to Skyline on Jan. 24, Tyson said he was comfortable heading into the tournament title game.
“Nah, there’s no pressure,” he said. “We’re just having fun because all these guys play basketball year-round. It’s just something to enjoy.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the date of the conference title game. The game is scheduled for Feb. 16.
Inglemoor senior Ryan Hamilton (23) challenges Bothell’s Cameron Tyson at the rim in the second half of Saturday’s game at Lake Washington High School. JOHN WILLIAM HOWARD/Bothell-Kenmore Reporter
Bothell’s Josh Kollman shoots over Inglemoor senior Chinedu Ugokwoli. Kollman finished with seven points for the Cougars. JOHN WILLIAM HOWARD/Bothell-Kenmore Reporter
Inglemoor boys basketball coach Greg Lowell has coached the Vikings for the better part of three decades. JOHN WILLIAM HOWARD/Bothell-Kenmore Reporter
