Richland quells hot-shooting Ferris, advances to district championship

The Richland High School boys basketball team is going back to the Tacoma Dome.

Cole Northrop scored 28 points on 7 of 12 3-point shooting, and for the third time in the past 2 years, the Bombers beat the Ferris Saxons in a postseason game, 84-79 on Saturday in the District 8 4A semifinals at Art Dawald Gymnasium.

Although Richland must still play in the district championship — at 7:30 p.m. Friday against the top-ranked Gonzaga Prep Bullpups — and in the regional round of state, the team is guaranteed a spot in at least the Round of 12 in Tacoma because of its RPI ranking, fourth among the state’s 4A teams as of Saturday night.

“No matter what, we’re going to the (Tacoma) Dome,” Richland senior forward Riley Sorn said. “We’ve got a really good game coming Friday, so we’ve gotta get ready for that this coming week. Gotta put this one behind us — it’s a great win, awesome win — but we’ve gotta just keep looking forward and moving on. Keep playing how we can play.”

Both teams squaring off in the District 8 championship game will sport 22-0 records after G-Prep took down Chiawana 55-38 on Saturday. Richland is playing in a district — or regional — championship game for the fifth time in the past six seasons, and it’s reached the state playoffs in each of those years, finishing fifth last year and second in 2014.

“I don’t know what else you can ask for, you just keep working your way into it,” coach Earl Streufert said of the Bombers’ reaching another district final. “It’s gonna be a fun week to get prepared.”

The Bombers led for much of the second half, but the win was anything but comfortable because of the Saxons’ ability to shoot from outside, making 14 of 35 3-pointers on the night.

Ryan Wagar did his thing and shut down Ferris’ leading scorer on the season, Shamrock Campbell, who was held to just 10 points on 3 of 7 shooting, which included a late 3-pointer when Wagar switched off of him. But the Saxons had plenty of firepower in their rotation to fill the scoring void as Mike Ervin got hot late to lead the team with 23 points and Ryan Christy made 5 of 9 3-pointers off the bench to account for all of his scoring.

“I expected that they would shoot the ball well, but I didn’t expect they’d shoot it that well,” Streufert said. “I expected Ervin to get on the rim, and he did, and I expected Shamrock to get loose a couple times, and he did. But other than a mistake at the end where we should have gotten Wags through and shouldn’t have switched it, he didn’t get loose.

“But a phenomenal effort, guys played super hard.”

Christy’s upstart shooting performance forced Sorn out to the perimeter more often than he expected, which caused the Richland zone to stretch a bit.

“When they started hiting those 3s, it was kind of interesting for me, because I had to help when a guy got beat, and they were so good at kicking it out and hitting those shots,” Sorn said. “I definitely had to be out there a lot, because you have to go out and contest.”

Marked well in the first half because of Ferris’ press and zone, Sorn erupted after halftime to finish with 21 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks. Garrett Streufert added 16 points and handed out five assists — second only on the team to Northrop’s six — and Cody Sanderson knocked down a couple treys to get to 15 points on the night.

The Saxons used some hot shooting to weather the home team’s momentum in the first half, and led 32-29 after a topsy-turvy opening 16 minutes. Richland made its adjustments and went on a 13-3 run over the first 2 1/2 minutes of the third quarter, and that proved to be enough to lead the rest of the way.

No. 6 Ferris (18-4) will host Lewis and Clark on Tuesday in the loser’s bracket semifinal.

This story was originally published February 10, 2018 at 10:39 PM with the headline "Richland quells hot-shooting Ferris, advances to district championship."