Is always the one that ends your season.  In reality, very few teams will ever end their season on a win, the state champions (obviously) and maybe a couple others fortunate enough to play consolation trophy games like 3rd/4th, etc.

And in my four years of covering Redmond sports, there was no loss tougher than Redmond’s 45-42 overtime defeat to Roosevelt. It was a great high school basketball game, and came down twice to one final play.

If you’re been following our coverage of the team, you may already know that this team has 11 seniors, which for any high school program is a phenomenal number.  I remember in the 09-10 season when the Mustangs I believe had only 4 league wins, current starters Conner Floan and Jason Harrington were starting as sophomores and were learning what it took to be successful in the ultra-tough Kingco league at the Varsity level.  The next year, they improved and everything seemed to come to a head this year as the Mustangs went 10-4 in league.

But this was Kingco, and as head coach Jeff Larson said, any of the eight teams had a good chance to win. If you thought picking March Madness brackets was hard, I think the odds of picking a perfect eight-team 4A Kingco boys bracket would be about a million to one this year.

Who would have guessed that No. 3-ranked Skyline, one of the overwhelming favorites to make the state tournament, would go two-and-out, including scoring a season-low 38 points against Roosevelt in their second-round game?

Coming off their Skyline upset, the Roughriders were ready for Redmond, with both teams playing tough, tight defense and allowing very few open looks. Jason Harrington, with just a few seconds left in regulation and down by two, launched up a long shot that found the net, and the Redmond bench and stands went wild.  The officials conferred for a brief second before ruling Harrington’s clutch jumper a two-pointer instead of a game-winning three, sending the game to overtime.

I was sitting near the opposite baseline so I had no vantage point myself on the shot, but Larson, who was only about eight feet away, said the refs got it right.

The Mustangs, down by one with 10 seconds left in overtime, had a lot of trouble inbounding the ball from the Roughriders’ baseline, and fortunately got the ball back for another try with six ticks left. Unfortunately, the ball was turned over before a shot could be put up, ending Redmond’s season far too soon.

As fun as it is to interview a team after they’ve won a state championship, there’s the flip side of the coin, and even approaching Coach Larson after something like that, knowing that a 5 or 6-year ride with that group of players (since they joined Redmond Basketball in junior high and developed through the program) is now done, was extremely difficult.

But when one story ends, another begins… both of our Bear Creek teams are doing very well and will play for their respective Tri-District championships on Saturday in Puyallup, with berths to the Feb. 25 “Regionals” round secured. After winning the state soccer tournament (girls) in the fall, how exciting would it be to follow up with a basketball championship?

Unfortunately, Redmond got shut out of the Mat Classic and Gymnastics Championships this weekend, which is where I will be covering a whole bunch of kids from the Bothell-Kenmore Reporter, but we have a great diver, Eric Klassen, who hopes to bring home some hardware from the state swim/dive championships in Federal Way.

Best of luck to Eric this weekend and go Grizzlies!