With 6:22 to go in their district loser-out matchup against Seattle Prep, Mercer Island needed a bucket and bad. The Panthers were in the process of swinging the momentum, cutting a seven-point Islander advantage to three. In a defensive battle where both teams found points hard to come by, a four-point run felt akin to a shootout.
Fortunately for the Islanders, they had just the shooters to step in and knock a few down.
Getting crucial 3-pointers down the stretch from Josh Stenberg and Sam Nordale, Mercer Island lived to find another day in the 3A SeaKing district tournament, beating Seattle Prep 44-39 Friday night at Bellevue College. Moving on, the Islanders will face Rainier Beach at 3 p.m. Saturday at Bellevue College with the fifth and final berth to the 3A state regionals at stake.
Coming through the back end of the district bracket, Stenberg summed up his team’s postseason mentality in four simple words.
“Win or go home,” he said. “It’s pretty self-explanatory. If we lose, we’re done, so we got to leave everything on the court.”
Neither team was conceding much in Friday’s contest, as it was clear both squads were familiar with the other, having faced off in the district tournament the previous three seasons.
“These guys are rivals,” Stenberg said. “They’re in another league, but we’ve gone back and forth with these guys over the years. It’s always a tough rivalry.”
“I think both teams are locked in to the strengths of each other and tried to take those things away,” Mercer Island coach Gavin Cree said. “They just did a good job of really denying a lot of passes and they didn’t allow Sam to get good looks. Sam has been really performing well for us and it was tough to get him in his spots. Just a tough, physical game and points were hard to come by.”
Both offenses only managed to score in single digits through the game’s opening quarter. Seattle Prep (13-12) led 9-7 after one and 15-12 in the second quarter before Mercer Island (18-7) closed with an 8-2 stretch to lead 20-17 at the half.
The game saw four lead changes early in the third quarter, the final coming off a 3-pointer from Stenberg that put the Islanders ahead 25-23. Nordale followed suit with another from deep, as Mercer Island remained in front the rest of the third and led 34-27 heading into the final period.
In the fourth, a basket from Aaron Nettles made it a 34-31 contest before Stenberg answered from beyond the arc to double Mercer Island’s lead. But the Panthers came back with a 6-0 run, punctuated with a 3-pointer from Nettles to tie the game 37-37 with 1:40 left to go.
Like clockwork, Stenberg answered again, kicking off a 6-0 Islander run with his third trey of the game. Nordale threw the final dagger, hitting his second 3-pointer of the game with 25 seconds left.
Nordale led Mercer Island in scoring with 14 points, while Stenberg had 11. Seattle Prep’s Nic Lynch led all scorers with 15 points.
Sitting one win away from regionals, things won’t get any easier for Mercer Island when they take on Rainier Beach. The Vikings are 17-6, with three of those losses coming against out-of-state opponents. Though Cree is aware his team has been in this position before, including once against Rainier Beach in 2011, the result a 50-43 Islander upset over the Vikings.
“There [were] four teams left on this side of the bracket and one team is going to advance,” Cree said. “We’ve done it three times before, so we just gotta do it again.”
