Wesco. A conference full of high school basketball powerhouses and underdogs, all playing for a spot in the District Playoffs, and more importantly, a trip to the Tacoma Dome and a shot at the Washington State High School Basketball Championship. In order to get there, a team must make it into the Wesco Championship game. Win or lose, a play-in game must be won after the District Playoffs, and finally, the team arrives at the dome.

But what comes before the lights and fame of the Dome? League play. The games that come after the non-conference games. The games that really matter when it comes to a team’s postseason fate. League play in Wesco isn’t just basketball, it’s war. The hard fought basketball, where games being decided by less than five points is a familiar occurrence. The games that all lead up to one thing. The Wesco crown.

The Arlington Eagles entered league play Friday night, facing their crosstown rivals, the Marysville Pilchuck Tomahawks. Two teams, both projected to contend heavily for the Wesco title, faced off in a game that set the tone for the remainder of the season.

Both teams are highly regarded in terms of skill. Marysville, entering friday with a record of 6-2, has played extremely well all season and is lead by senior, Josh Beaven, who is averaging 20.3 points per a game. Marysville started of their pre-league play very strongly, setting the bar high for the other teams in Wesco North. With Arlington and Stanwood being the other two Wesco North powerhouses in 3A, the Tomahawks have held up well.

Arlington, a team considered to be a little inexperienced and quite young, have a wild factor to them. The teams ability to overcome a score deficit at any point in the game is like no other team before them, and is frightening to other teams. The eagles overcame double digit leads late in game against both Mariner and Edmonds-Woodway, with the win over EW coming off of a buzzer beater from Senior, Nathan Aune, who made a layup as time expired to put the Eagles up 61-59.

Everyone in the gym at Marysville Pilchuck knew they were in for a special treat with these two teams facing off, but they didn’t know how big that treat would turn out to be. The Eagles trailed at one point by 15 in the second quarter, and displayed their ability to come back from double digit deficit for the third consecutive game. After a hard fought battle in the second half, the Eagle’s found their first lead in the 4th quarter when the Eagle’s Brennon Wiersma put in a basket with five seconds left in the game, putting the eagles up 53-52. With five seconds left, the game was far from over. Bryce Juneau got the ball and drove up court, putting up a shot at the buzzer, in hopes of winning the game. The ball, to Juneau’s despair, rolled off the rim.

That’s when something amazing happened.

Senior Guard, Cole Grinde, was trailing the play the whole time with mindset of getting a putback if Juneau missed. Once the shot rolled of the rim, Grinde tapped the ball back in with what seemed like absolutely no time left on the clock. To the naked eye, the call was impossible, a guess at best. The referees initially ruled the shot no good, initiating a deafening explosion of cheer from the Arlington crowd, and protest from the Marysville section. With the gym rumbling after the final play of the game, the referees grouped into a huddle and discussed the final call, eventually announcing to the coaches and the crowd, that the basket would count. The referees bolted for the door as the Arlington fans displayed their protest, ending the game in a Tomahawk victory of 54-53.
A fan in the stands decided before the final play occurred, that the outcome might be worthy of a video taken on his cell phone. A six second clip shows Juneau missing the layup and Grinde hitting the buzzer beater. This video then got into the hands of ESPN’s flagship program, Sportscenter, which landed the buzzer beater on the Top Ten Plays list, at number 10. Grinde’s shot, the Arlington and MP boys teams, and the pandemonium in the gym were all captured and displayed on national television, giving a crazy ending to an even crazier tip-off to Wesco League Play. Let the war begin.