SportsSection B lyndentribune.com•Wednesday,March16,2016

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Somers, Beard, Soares also earned first-team honors WHATCOM — Lynden Christian senior Zach Roetcisoender was named the North-west Conference boys basketball Most Valu-able Player with the release of last week’s All-NWC teams, which are voted on by the league’s coaches. The standout guard won the NWC scoring title and finished the season with an average of 22.8 points and a team-high 5.5 rebounds per game. He scored more than 30 points four times, including a season-high 39 in a Dec. 22 win over King’s Way Christian. Roetcisoender helped the Lyncs earn a share of the NWC crown with Lynden, making LC the first 1A school in the 10-year history of the multi-classification league to win a confer-ence title. He finishes with 1,408 career points, fourth-most in school history. Lynden senior Sterling Somers, Nooksack Valley senior Connor Beard and Mount Baker senior Timothy Soares joined Roetcisoender as first-team All-NWC selections.

Somers, the league’s second-leading scor-er, put together a dominant senior season in which he averaged 18.9 points, 10 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game. The versatile 6-5 Se-attle Pacific commit scored 39 points in a dou-ble-overtime win over Mount Baker on Jan. 19 and hit a game-winning 3-pointer to lead the Lions past Tumwater in the 2A state third-place game on March 5. Somers carried Lynden to a share of the conference title this season and finishes as the second-leading scorer in program history with 1,314 career points. Beard, the league’s third-leading scorer, finished with an average of 19.5 points and 2.9 assists per game. The speedy guard helped en-gineer a massive turnaround that saw the Pio-neers win nine games this season after totaling just five victories over the previous four years combined. Soares, in his second and final season of high school basketball after moving from Bra-zil, averaged 16.6 points, 11.3 rebounds and three assists per game. The 6-10 post helped

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LC’s Roetcisoender named Northwest Conference MVP

LC senior guard Zach Roetcisoender was voted Northwest Conference MVP by the league’s coaches. He averaged an NWC-leading 22.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.(CameronVanTil/LyndenTribune)See Boys All-NWConB4

New arms across conference following departure of talented senior pitching class By Cameron Van Tilsports@lyndentribune.com

WHATCOM — The Northwest Conference softball landscape fig-ures to look a bit different this sea-son. The league has been rich with high-end pitching talent over the last several years, but many of the con-ference’s top throwers graduated af-ter last season. Lynden’s Tanna Benson, Fern-dale’s Lauren Maley, Anacortes’ Brooke Writer, Mount Baker’s Aleks Toivola and Nooksack Valley’s Alexis Pike were each a dominant force in the circle last year. None are return-ing this season. Given the annual turnover, high school teams always experience a transition process from year to year. Yet for several teams, that process is only amplified this season, given the value of a top-level pitcher in soft-ball. Still, even though the NWC will be void of some of last year’s biggest stars, there’s still plenty of talent on local teams as they begin their 2016 campaign. And plenty of room for new stars to emerge.

Lions turning the page after depar-ture of accomplished senior class Lynden bid farewell to an in-credibly talented class of six senior starters that helped the program win at least a share of three conference titles in the past four years. The Lions were particularly dominant last season, finishing un-defeated in league play while out-scoring NWC opponents 115-12. Lynden took a 23-game winning streak into the 2A state quarterfinals and was one out away from the semi-finals, but had its title hopes dashed in walk-off fashion. Heading that senior class was star pitcher Tanna Benson, the NWC’s Player of the Year. She domi-nated both in the circle and at the plate, notching a 1.26 ERA and hit-ting .539 with eight home runs. The Lions also lose cleanup-hit-ting outfielder Hannah Rothwell and star catcher Mandy Warner, both of whom joined Benson as first-team all-conference selections and four-year starters at Lynden. Graduated third baseman Kay-lee Vis was a second-team pick, while first baseman Jenna Bonsen and out-fielder Sara Collins rounded out the accomplished group of seniors. “With the quality and the quan-tity of that group, replacing them individually is just not going to hap-pen,” Lynden head coach Steve Pe-tersen said. “So we’re going to try to do it by committee.

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Softball season in the air

Lynden junior third baseman Teylor Eshuis is one of several key returners the Lions figure they will be leaning on this season.(CameronVanTil/LyndenTribune) See SoftballonB2

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Lyncs learned, grew from prior setbacks, including last year’s state quarterfinal collapseBy Cameron Van Tilsports@lyndentribune.com

LYNDEN — Lynden Christian entered the postseason last month with 15 double-digit victories, 10 wins by at least 20 points and hav-ing outscored opponents by an average of 18.4 points per game. But as dominant as the Lyncs had been, they recognized a critical area in need of im-provement: handling adversity. It made all the difference in the world. LC maneuvered its way through numer-ous potential pitfalls during its recent state championship run, which the Lyncs capped off with a 43-38 comeback win over King’s in the 1A state title game on Saturday, March 5. It was a stark contrast from last season’s

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Lyncs, Lions place three apiece on All-NWC teams WHATCOM — Lynden junior Elisa Koo-iman, Lynden Christian senior Kara Bajema and Mount Baker senior Emily Brandland each earned first-team honors with last week’s re-lease of the All-Northwest Conference teams, which are voted on by the league’s coaches. Kooiman, one of the conference’s top scor-ers, averaged 18.6 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. The versatile 5-11 guard led the Lions to a share of the NWC crown and a second-place finish in the 2A state tournament. Bajema capped her illustrious LC career by averaging 14.6 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.3 as-sists per contest. The 6-4 post helped guide the co-NWC champion Lyncs to the program’s 11th state title. Brandland turned in an impressive senior season by averaging 15 points, eight rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game. The 5-11 forward helped the Mountaineers tie for fourth place in the NWC standings and finished just one win short of the 1A state regional round.

See Girls All-NWConB4

Handling adversity was key to title run

LC rallied past King’s to win the 1A state title on March 5.(CameronVanTil/LyndenTribune)See LyncsonB3

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Hardwood Classic, when a ma-jor collapse in the heat of adver-sity ended the state championship hopes of a similarly dominant team. LC had held a 24-19 lead enter-ing the fourth quarter of last year’s 1A state quarterfinal against Lake-side (Nine Mile Falls), but it was then that adversity struck. And the Lyncs had no answer. Lakeside opened the final pe-riod with 12 straight points and out-scored LC 24-4 in the final period to run away with the game and elimi-nate the Lyncs from title contention. And while there were plenty of blowout victories in between, a similar occurrence transpired in LC’s 55-45 rivalry loss to Lynden this season on Jan. 22. The Lyncs got off to an early 11-0 advantage and led their cross-town rivals by as many as 16 points in the second quarter. But when the Lions came roaring back, LC again had no answer, and things spiraled out of control. Lynden outscored the Lyncs 42-17 over the final two-and-a-

half quarters, surging past LC with an 18-3 second-half run while the Lyncs went nine minutes without a field goal. The collapse prompted some soul-searching. “We met as a group after the Lynden loss and had a real conver-sation about our last three losses against Lynden, Snohomish and then all the way back to Lakeside,” LC head coach Brady Bomber said. “They all had the same formula of us, as a group — coaches to players — not handling adversity and not being as tough physically and men-tally as we needed to be. “So from that point on, we re-ally made a decision every day to prepare for storms and be ready to meet challenges.” The difference was night and day. LC’s first test came against King’s in the 1A district title game on Feb. 13. The Lyncs held a relatively comfortable 10-point lead near the midway point of the fourth quarter, but King’s raced back with seven straight points to cut the deficit to three in the closing minutes.

It was a situation LC had wilted in before. But this time was differ-ent. Senior post Kara Bajema banked in an off-balance shot and the Lyncs held King’s scoreless for the remainder of the game to win the district championship. The next test came against Cashmere in the 1A state quarterfi-nals on Thursday, March 3. LC had been in control nearly the entire game, but the Bulldogs hit a pair of 3-pointers in the final 12 seconds of the third quarter to quickly slice the Lyncs’ lead to five points. It was the exact same scenario as last year — a five-point lead en-tering the fourth quarter of the state quarterfinals. “We felt we had a decision to make,” Bomber said, “whether we were going to give up as we had in other games, or whether we were going to fight and continue to go.” This time, LC fended off its op-ponent’s rally. Twice. The Lyncs opened the fourth quarter with a pair of baskets to stretch their lead to nine points. Then, after Cashmere cut the mar-

gin to three with less than four min-utes remaining, senior guard Haley Hollander drove to the hoop for a pair of baskets to help seal the vic-tory. “Our team just stayed the course and grinded it out,” Bomb-er said. “The girls just battled and competed.” And fittingly, the final tests — plural — came in the state title game against King’s. LC faced wave after wave of adversity throughout the contest, but simply refused to give in. “Even when things didn’t go our way,” Bajema said, “we never gave up.” The Lyncs suffered a lengthy first-half scoring drought, going nearly six minutes without a point and almost eight minutes without a field goal. LC committed seven turnovers during the stretch and 12 in the first half. Nothing seemed to be going right offensively. Yet instead of caving, LC coun-tered with a championship-caliber defensive performance that kept them within just two points at half-time.

More adversity piled on in the second half, as King’s pushed its lead to eight with less than a minute left in the third quarter. It seemed like the Knights were on their way to a second consecutive state title. “There were plenty of mo-ments where we could have folded,” Bomber said. But LC never did. The Lyncs quickly cut the mar-gin to four points by the end of the third quarter. And then, in the fourth, Bajema and sophomore Av-ery Dykstra took over. The duo combined for LC’s final 13 points, scoring clutch basket af-ter clutch basket as the Lyncs rallied past King’s to complete the come-back and win the state title. “Our girls never backed down,” Bomber said. “There was no pan-ic, no concern, because we talked about that. We had discussions about how we were going to have to handle storms.” Those storms came often this postseason. This time, the Lyncs were ready. And the end result was a state championship.

Lyncs: Battled through several storms on path to state titleContinued from B1

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Locals shine on Boys & Girls Club senior all-star nightLynden’s Somers hits game-winning 3-pointer as both County teams win; Baker’s Soares take slam dunk title LYNDEN — Standout seniors from across the county capped their high school basketball careers on Friday night with the 30th an-nual Boys & Girls Clubs of What-com County Classic at Lynden High School. Lynden forward Sterling Somers hit a game-winning 3-pointer with five seconds remaining to lift the County team to a 117-116 win over the City team in the boys senior all-star game, which was played with 10-minute quarters.

Lynden Christian guard Jake Poag led the County team with 31 points, including nine 3-pointers. Somers finished with 24 points. Poag also starred in the boys 3-point contest, hitting 10 3s in the 30-second event to force a tiebreak-er round with Sehome’s Leighton Kingma. But in the extra 30 sec-onds, Kingma defeated Poag, 11-5, to win the title. Mount Baker’s Timothy Soares won the slam dunk contest with a two-handed reverse jam that was assisted off the backboard by Moun-taineers teammate Grant Balvanz. On the girls side, LC’s Haley Hollander scored 17 points to lead the County team to a 54-40 win over the City team. Nooksack Valley’s Arlissa Oet-tel won the girls 3-point contest, hitting nine 3s to force a tiebreaker round and then draining 10 3s in the extra frame to win the title.

Nooksack Valley’s Connor Beard drives to the hoop in Friday’s boys game. (Cameron Van Til/Lynden Tribune)