Bethea's 700th Has a Title
Tyran Stokes cannot be stopped as Vikings take the Metro League
There was not a lot of hoorah among the Rainier Beach High School boys basketball team after a 62-49 victory over O’Dea at Seattle Pacific University on Friday night. They had much to celebrate, after all. The Vikings beat down what’s been their closest rival to claim the Metro League championship and coach Mike Bethea became the fourth high-school boys basketball coach in state history to win 700 games. Not only that, but Beach is expecting the return next Thursday of freshman JJ Crawford who has been sidelined since suffering a right high-ankle sprain on Jan. 23.
To reach the milestone in a city championship game, Bethea said, “is pretty sweet. We understand the importance of the city championship. It means a lot, but we’ve got our eyes on the prize, and we have a lot of work to do.”
The Vikings, of course, are seeking to defend their state 3A championship. They also are a factor nationally. Beach climbed to No. 17 in the Max Preps national rankings released this week and No. 18 in SI’s Power 25. Plus they have the nation’s No. 1 college recruit in Tyran Stokes.
Stokes, who officially received his Metro League MVP award, would not be denied by the myriad defenses and defenders O’Dea tried. He had seven points as Beach closed the first half with a 9-2 run, accounted for 11 of the Vikings’ 15 fourth-quarter points, and finished with 31. He literally slammed the door on the Fighting Irish, pounding down consecutive dunks with about a minute and a half to play.
O’Dea’s bigs — 6-foot-9 Gene Woodard III and 6-5 Josiah Bowman — don’t have enough lateral quickness to keep in front of Stokes. Guilio Banchero, 6-2, and Brian Webster, 6-3 and O’Dea’s best player, also took turns against the 6-8 Stokes, but Banchero fouled out and Webster was saddled with four fouls. The common denominators were physical play and, ultimately, failure.
“They tried everything,” Stokes said. “They can try 1,000 more ways, but that won’t stop me from going where I want to go, especially if I get my teammates involved.”
Stokes added that beating O’Dea for a third time wasn’t necessarily satisfying. “I want to beat them two more times,” he said, referencing next week’s District 2 playoffs and the WIAA state 3A championship tournament the week after.
Rainier Beach will open district play on Tuesday at Bellevue College, 8 p.m. They will take on the winner of today’s Garfield-Inglemoor matchup. Either should be overmatched — the Vikings beat Garfield twice by an average of 53 points this season — but they only need remember a year ago, when they were shocked by Bellarmine Prep, 59-57, in the opening round of the state tournament.
