SportsSection B lyndentribune.com•Wednesday,March2,2016

Sports Briefs•B4

Legal Notices•B5

Classifieds•B6

Zamora, Marsh combine for 23 points as Lynden punches ticket to Yakima with state regional winBy Cameron Van Tilsports@lyndentribune.com

RENTON — Lynden freshmen Christian Zamora and James Marsh weren’t on the team for last year’s state regional loss to Mark Morris that snapped the Lions’ string of three consec-utive trips to Yakima for the Hardwood Classic. But the freshman duo delivered big-time contributions on Saturday to help ensure that their teammates didn’t experience that painful ending again. Zamora and Marsh combined for 23 points, including 16 in the second half, as the second-ranked Lions punched their ticket to Yakima with a 57-51 win over Liberty (Is-saquah) in a 2A state regional contest at Rent-on High School. The victory advanced Lynden (23-2) to the state quarterfinals for the fourth time in the past five years and the seventh time in the last decade. The Lions will face 10th-ranked Wapa-

FOUR LOCAL TEAMS HEADED TO YAKIMATheLyndenboys,Lyndengirls,LyndenChristiangirlsandNooksackValleygirlsbasketballteamseachwonastateregionalgameonSaturdaytoadvancetothisweek’sHardwoodClassicinYakima.EachteamwillopenwithastatequarterfinalcontestonThursday.Semifinalandconsolation

gameswillbeplayedonFridayandstatetrophygameswilltakeplaceonSaturday.AllgameswillbeplayedintheYakimaValleySunDome.

LYNDEN BOYSSTATE REGIONALLynden 57, Liberty 51

STATE QUARTERFINALLynden vs. Wapato5:30p.m.Thursday

LYNDEN GIRLSSTATE REGIONALLynden 67, Liberty 39

STATE QUARTERFINALLynden vs. Black Hills

2p.m.Thursday

LC GIRLSSTATE REGIONAL

LC 72, Charles Wright 34

STATE QUARTERFINALLC vs. Cashmere9p.m.Thursday

NOOKSACK GIRLSSTATE REGIONAL

Nooksack Valley 47, La Center 39

STATE QUARTERFINALNooksack Valley vs. Zillah

5:30p.m.Thursday

Kooiman leads Lions to blowout state regional win over Liberty (Issaquah)By Cameron Van Tilsports@lyndentribune.com

RENTON — During Lynden head coach Rob Adams’ tenure with the Lions, the magic number has always been 39. Hold the oppo-nent to 39 points or less, and a victory will al-most surely follow.

“That’s all you’ll hear is 39,” Adams said. “We figure we should be able to get 40. And if we get 40, we win.” Fittingly, the Lions punched their ticket to Yakima with a trademark Lynden defensive performance that landed right on the magic number. The third-ranked Lions earned their third straight trip to the state quarterfinals and fourth in the last five years with a 67-39 win over Liberty (Issaquah) on Saturday in a 2A state regional contest at Renton High School.

Top-ranked Lyncs overwhelm Charles Wright in state regional winBy Cameron Van Tilsports@lyndentribune.com

MOUNT VERNON — Lynden Christian, with an interior that features 6-2 Kara Bajema and 6-1 Sam Van Loo, owns a height differen-tial over most opponents. It was even more pronounced on Friday

against a team with no starters taller than 5-8. And the Lyncs took full advantage. Bajema and Van Loo combined for 34 points and 20 rebounds as top-ranked LC punched its ticket to Yakima for the Hard-wood Classic with a dominant 72-34 win over Charles Wright Academy in a 1A state regional matchup at Mount Vernon High School. The victory earned the Lyncs (23-2) their 12th consecutive state quarterfinals berth. LC will face Cashmere (16-7) at 9 p.m. on Thurs-day in the Yakima Valley SunDome with a spot

Lyncs can’t overcome 20-point halftime hole as memorable season ends in state regional showdownBy Cameron Van Tilsports@lyndentribune.com

YAKIMA — With two of the state’s top 1A teams pitted against one another in a state regional matchup, one was guar-anteed to see its season cut short of a deserving trip to Yakima for this week’s Hardwood Classic. That team ended up being Lynden Christian. Second-ranked Zillah raced to a 20-point halftime lead and

held on for a 60-49 win over top-ranked LC on Saturday in a colossal state regional matchup at Eisenhower High School in Yakima. The loss ended a memorable season for the senior-laden Lyncs (22-3), who split the Northwest Conference title with Lyn-den to become the first 1A champion in the 10-year history of the multi-classification league. “The unfortunate events and decisions that led to the draw of Zillah playing Lynden Christian was obviously an unfortu-nate deal,” LC head coach Roger DeBoer said. “And whether it would have been Zillah or Lynden Christian staying home (from Yakima next week), it’s a situation that in my opinion should have and could have been avoided. “That being said, you have to be able to deal with the cir-cumstances that you’ve been given. We knew that whatever

team played the better game that day was going to be the team that ended up moving on, and that’s what happened.” The game was a rematch of last season’s state semifinal, which LC won 60-38 after holding Zillah to just eight first-half points. On Saturday, however, it was the Lyncs who got off to a slow start. Zillah (23-1) stormed to a 17-8 lead by the end of the first quarter and a 41-21 halftime advantage while shooting 14-of-23 (60.9 percent) in the first half, including 5-of-11 from 3-point range. LC finished 4-of-29 beyond the arc for the entire game. Not helping matters for the Lyncs was a major foul differen-tial, as LC was whistled for 25 fouls to Zillah’s nine.

PREP GIRLS BASKETBALL

Lynden girls Yakima-bound for third consecutive year

LC girls earn 12th straight state quarterfinal berth

PREP GIRLS BASKETBALL

SeeLynden girlsonB3 SeeLC girlsonB4

Lynden’s senior trioChildhoodfriendsSterlingSomers,NoahKingandJordanWittenberghaveplayedamassivepartintheLions’bigseason.See B2 Lynden freshman Christian Zamora scored 13 points and grabbed eight rebounds to help the Lions to a 57-51 win over Liberty

(Issaquah) on Saturday in a 2A state regional contest.(CameronVanTil/LyndenTribune)

PREP BOYS BASKETBALL

Fabulous freshmen help Lions back to Dome

PREP BOYS BASKETBALL

LC boys ousted by Zillah in battle of top-ranked teams

SeeLC boysonB4

SeeLynden boysonB4

B4 • Wednesday, March 2, 2016 • lyndentribune.com

BELLINGHAM — Former Lynden Christian girls basket-ball head coach Curt De Haan has been selected for induction into the inaugural Washington State Girls Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame class, according to a February release. The induction ceremony will be held Friday, March 18, in Schirmir Auditorium at King’s High School in Shoreline. De Haan will be one of seven inaugural inductees. De Haan posted a state-record 772 wins in 34 seasons as LC’s head coach before stepping down in spring 2014. He led the Lyncs to 31 state tournament berths, 23 state semifinal appear-ances and eight state titles. De Haan, who is currently in his ninth year as LC’s athletic director, is planning to retire at the end of the school year.

Wanted: Umpires for LYS baseball LYNDEN — Lynden Youth Sports is in search of paid um-pires for boys baseball. Adults and youth ages 12 and older are welcome. All um-pires will undergo training and be supervised. Contact LYS at www.lyndenyouthsports.com or at 354-5391.

Chuckanut Bay Rugby youth training BELLINGHAM — It’s not too late to try one of the country’s fastest-growing sports. Chuckanut Bay Rugby training is held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays at Whatcom Community College’s Orca Field. Boys teams range from fifth to 12th grade and girls teams from ninth to 12th. No previous rugby experience is necessary. Email tightheadjoel@comcast.net for questions or more information.

in the semifinals at stake. “We’re super excited,” Van Loo said. “That’s the highlight of the season, to get to go to Yakima. We’re excited to compete and do the best we can.” Van Loo recorded 19 points and 11 rebounds, while Bajema finished just short of a double-double with 15 points and nine rebounds. The Lyncs held a 49-26 rebounding advantage over Charles Wright. Freshman forward Isabela Hernan-dez added 12 points and six rebounds for the Lyncs. Sophomore point guard Avery Dykstra dished a team-high seven assists. Entering the second quarter with a 13-10 lead, LC began asserting its domi-nance inside and outscored Charles Wright 45-12 over the next two periods combined. “Kara and Sam really did a nice job cutting hard, and (Riley Van Hulzen) came in, really flashed hard and got some good putbacks,” Lyncs head coach Brady Bomber said. “And when our guards and posts are working together like that — when they’re making hard cuts and our guards are finding them — they become really effective for us.” LC used a 9-0 run early in the second quarter to extend its lead to 23-13, and then capped the quarter with an 8-0 run to build a 37-17 halftime advantage. The Lyncs held Charles Wright (15-7) without a field goal for the first five min-utes of the third quarter and outscored the Tarriers 21-5 in the period to push the lead to 58-22. “It’s exciting,” said Bomber of ad-vancing to Yakima. “It’s one of our goals from the beginning of the year. It’s fun for (the girls) to get a chance to have that ex-perience.”

“There just aren’t a lot of games you’re going to win when you get outshot at the free throw line 35-8,” DeBoer said. “That was unfortunate for our kids to have that type of obstacle to climb out of.” Yet LC clawed back to make it interesting. The Lyncs held Zillah scoreless for more than four minutes to begin the second half to trim the deficit to 44-31. Senior guard Zach Roet-cisoender scored 10 of his team-high 18 points in the third quarter and hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the period to cut it 48-38. Aided by Zillah’s 10 missed free throws in the fourth quarter, LC pulled to 54-49 with less than three minutes remaining. The Lyncs then had three con-secutive possessions with a chance to make it a one-score game, but couldn’t connect in the closing minutes as their season came to a painful end. LC senior point guard Jo-siah Meppelink finished with 10 points and four assists, while senior guard Jake Poag added nine points. “I just applaud their grit and heart,” DeBoer said. “To be down 20 and have three possessions with a chance to get right back in it showed a lot about their character. “Their never-say-die at-titude was shown many times this year, and it showed again. We just weren’t able to get that one or two big shots to fall that we had been used to seeing.”

Seniors leave strong legacy The Lyncs bid farewell to seven seniors and a class that figures to hold a special place in LC basketball history. This season’s senior-led Lyncs went 11-1 in the highly competitive NWC and shared the league title with Lynden to make history as the con-ference’s first-ever 1A cham-pion. Many of the seniors also played an integral role last year in LC’s spirited run to the 2015 1A state title game. The Lyncs won 40 games over the past two seasons, and they did so with fast-paced, team-oriented and unselfish style of play. “They’re going to be a group that’s etched in the hearts of the coaching staff and me from this time for-ward for who they were as young men,” DeBoer said. Here is a brief look at the seven seniors:    •  Zach Roetcisoender was the NWC’s leading scorer this year at 23.1 points per game. The 6-1 guard demon-strated an all-around ability to score with a smooth out-side shot and a knack for at-tacking the rim. “The thing that probably

stands out to me the most about Zach was his ability to handle all of his success with such humility,” DeBoer said. “It’s easy to embrace his suc-cess right along with him when he handles it the way that he does.”    • Josiah Meppelink aver-aged 6.1 points and six assists this season, but his impact can’t be quantified with num-bers. As the point guard, Mep-pelink headed LC’s high-scoring attack and kept it humming efficiently like a well-oiled machine. He has a basketball mind well beyond his years, DeBoer said, and demonstrated his natural leadership ability on a nightly basis. “Josiah is an extension of me and our coaching staff on the floor,” DeBoer said. “The system that we run is a little more complicated than even your normal high school system, so (that’s) a really big deal to us.”    •  Jake Poag was the team’s second-leading scorer at 15.4 points per game. The speedy 6-2 guard was a sharp-shooter from beyond the arc and developed into a strong all-around player during his time in the program. “The thing that inspires me about Jake is how much he’s grown as a player and as a young man,” DeBoer said. “He came in as a sophomore on varsity and was kind of a specialty player who’d knock down shots. “He’s developed his game to become a complete player and showed it on both ends. Even on nights when the shots weren’t falling, he defended his tail off and re-

bounded very well for us.”    •  Nate Hielkema was a strong rebounder and de-veloped into a key offensive threat for the Lyncs, averag-ing 6.9 points per game this season. “I just admire Nate’s growth as a player and a per-son,” DeBoer said. “The confi-dence that he played with this year was really neat to watch. “And in addition to that, I really admire his heart. He’s got such a great spirit about him.”    •  Tanner Bouma aver-aged 6.6 points per game and was a pinpoint outside shoot-er with a knack for the clutch. The 5-10 guard’s buzzer-beating 3 that forced overtime — completing an incredible nine-point rally in the final 15 seconds of regulation — in LC’s Dec. 17 win over Squali-cum will surely hold a place in Whatcom County basketball lore. “Tanner was kind of our ‘ice man’ — a guy who was ready to knock down that big shot and wasn’t afraid of the big moment,” DeBoer said. “He came through for us on a number of clutch perfor-mances. And that’s just Tan-ner — he has such an even-

keeled personality.    •  Lucas Roetcisoender was a reliable role player for the Lyncs who played the en-tire season through a shoul-der injury sustained during football season last fall. The 6-1 forward hit a piv-otal 3-pointer to help seal LC’s bi-district win over Mount Baker on Feb. 20 that ad-vanced the Lyncs to the state regionals. “He inspired me for his quiet leadership,” DeBoer said. “We always knew when he had something to say that it was going to be very impor-tant. “He handled his role with a ton of dignity and class, which is what we grew to ex-pect from him being the type of person he is.”    •  Andrew Vander Mey didn’t see much court time, but was nonetheless a vital part of the team, DeBoer said. “Andrew was the epito-me of a team player. To him, it wasn’t about minutes — it was about being a part of something special,” DeBoer said. “We got his very best ef-fort and very best attitude ev-ery single day. And for a head coach, that’s inspirational.”

to (19-4) at 5:30 p.m. on Thurs-day in the Yakima Valley Sun-Dome. “All year, we’ve had one goal — to make it to state,” Zamora said. “We’re just hap-py that we can go to state this year for the seniors.” Zamora led the team with 13 points and eight rebounds, while Marsh added 10 points. The duo combined for 12 of Lynden’s 13 points during a pivotal run late in the third quarter and into the fourth. “I’ve loved them ever since summer when they came up,” Lynden senior Sterling Somers said. “Right away, I knew they could play. They’re mature, be-cause they play all summer in AAU. They go to tournaments all the time and play tough competition, so they’re ready for this. “They don’t look like freshmen at all. I just love hav-ing them out there with us.” Lynden’s trio of seniors also turned in strong perfor-mances. Somers recorded 11 points and seven rebounds, while Jordan Wittenberg add-ed 10 points and Noah King chipped in six. Somers, a 6-5 Seattle Pa-cific commit, helped dig the team out of an early hole with seven points during an 18-2 Lynden run that gave the Lions a 23-13 lead midway through the second quarter. Liberty (13-12), however, fought back with a 9-2 run of its own to cut the deficit to 28-25 by halftime. And after a slow start to the second half, Liber-ty scored five quick points to tie the game at 33 shortly past the midway point of the third quarter. With Liberty having seized momentum, Lynden began to apply defensive pressure by employing half-court traps. “We were on our heels and they seemed to be the ag-gressors,” Lynden head coach Brian Roper said. “(Assistant coach) Mike Elsner wanted to start trapping and I thought that was a great call by him. “We got a few deflections, it seemed to energize us and then we were able to get out in transition.” The result was a key stretch to close the third quar-ter. The Lions broke the 33-all tie with a 9-2 run, sparked by six points from Zamora in a span of 70 seconds. Marsh began the flurry of baskets with a made base-line jumper, and Zamora fol-lowed with a pair of putback lay-ins. Zamora then drove to

the hoop on the following pos-session for an acrobatic lay-in that gave the Lions a 42-35 lead entering the fourth quar-ter. Marsh then added a pair of lay-ins off assists early in the fourth quarter to push Lyn-den’s lead to 47-39 with five minutes remaining. “Coach told James, me and the other freshmen on the team,” Zamora said, “that we aren’t freshmen when we’re playing for him — we’re varsity players. That really relaxes us. He’s always said we’re on varsi-ty for a reason, so we just play.” The freshman duo’s pe-formance was especially im-portant with Liberty keying on Somers in the second half and limiting the senior to two points after the break. “They were determined to take Sterling away,” Roper said. “That was their game plan and they executed it well. But we’ve got a basketball team with multiple guys who can shoot and score. “I never thought we’d be running plays for freshmen in the fourth quarter of a regional game, but that seemed to be our best matchup and both of those guys delivered down the stretch.” Wittenberg hit a 3-pointer to bump the Lions’ lead to 50-41, but Liberty answered with a pair of quick baskets to make it a five-point game with 2:48 left. Yet after Zamora and Lib-erty traded another pair of quick buckets, King drilled a 3-pointer with 1:38 remaining to extend the margin to 55-47 and ultimately seal the victory. Lynden has now won three straight elimination games since a district semifi-nal loss to Shorecrest on Feb. 16. “Some people in Lyn-den think it’s your birthright to go to state,” Roper said. “But we know it’s hard, espe-cially with the regional format. “We’ve won three straight loser-out games, and we’ve done that because we’ve got some tough, competitive kids.” After the pain of last sea-son’s state regional loss, the Lions are headed back to the SunDome. “That was definitely in the back of our heads,” Somers said of last year’s difficult end. “The bus ride home from Mount Vernon last year after the loss was the worst feeling ever. “It just motivated us more this year, and it feels so good to go back there now.”

Lynden boysContinued from B1

De Haan selected for inaugural WSGBCA Hall of Fame induction

LC girls: Lyncs went on 45-12 runContinued from B1

LC sophomore Sam Van Loo had 19 points and 11 rebounds in the Lyncs’ state regional win over Charles Wright on Friday. (Cameron Van Til/Lynden Tribune)

LC boys: Seniors leave behind legacyContinued from B1

LC senior point guard Josiah Meppelink ran the offense with precision, efficiency and smarts, and was an integral part of the team’s success. (Cameron Van Til/Lynden Tribune)