Tough road looms ahead for Braves

First, the bad news.

The La Conner Braves dropped successive Bi-District home games last week, falling 70-61 in overtime to Auburn Adventist Academy Thursday night before dropping a 54-50 Saturday matinee decision to Tacoma Baptist.

Now, the good news.

It wasn’t a totally lost week for the Braves, who at 16-7 on the campaign, remain a key player in the 2B Regional field, despite their rare twin playoff setbacks.

What it means, though, is La Conner — one of the more storied small school programs in the state — faces what would literally be a long, hard road back to Spokane.

The first leg of that journey is a Regional date against Southwest power Morton-White Pass, with whom the Braves have tangled several times in the football playoffs — this Friday at 6 p.m. at W. F. West High School in Chehalis.

Not an impossible task. Just a formidable one for a rangy, athletic La Conner roster that relies on interchangeable parts hitting on all cylinders each time out.

Senior Hudson Zavala was the Braves’ driving force at Bi-Districts.

He scored 17 points and played a superb floor game in the overtime loss to Auburn Adventist, a game La Conner literally let slip away.

La Conner’s 22 turnovers allowed the Falcons to slowly creep back into a contest the hosts had controlled from the get-go.

The Braves led 22-17 after the first period and took a 32-26 edge into the locker room at intermission.

But La Conner couldn’t quite flip the birds.

The Falcons, capitalizing on costly La Conner miscues, pulled even at 55-55 by the end of regulation.

Auburn Adventist then closed with a 15-6 blitz in the extra session.

Matt Finley helped the Braves briefly stave off the Falcon comeback, joining Zavala in double figures with 11 points.

Cameron Hansen and Wil James added nine points apiece for the Braves.

Skylar Krueger and Sean Hulbert chipped in six points each. Senior post Cameron Sherman tallied three to round out the La Conner scoring.

The script was reversed on Saturday.

La Conner fell behind early, then steadily closed the gap with Tacoma Baptist as time wound down.

It was Zavala who again fueled the Braves.

He finished with a game-high 26 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, six of which came off the offensive glass.

Zavala’s high-octane effort was defined by one sequence in particular.

With La Conner trailing 52-48 in the final minute, the Braves’ senior drove into traffic, rose above TB defenders, and tossed the ball hard against the backboard. Zavala quickly gathered in the carom and scored on a putback, narrowing the Crusader lead to 52-50.

But that was as close as La Conner would get.

A late La Conner turnover and two free throws with 10 seconds left by Tacoma Baptist’s Dayton Pascua, who paced the victors with 19 points, sealed the verdict.

Brandon Stoerher added 12 points for Tacoma Baptist, which saw seven players reach the scoring column.

Zavala was the lone La Conner player to reach double digits.

The Braves were just 17 of 51 from the floor, including three of 17 trey attempts.

Nor did La Conner help itself at the charity stripe. The Braves cashed in on only half their 22 foul shots, some of those misses coming on front ends of bonus opportunities.

Veteran La Conner coach Scott Novak was to spend part of this week trying to put added spark into his club’s halfcourt sets.

The hope is the Braves can ride a jump-started offense to this year’s Elite Eight in Spokane.