The Bremerton Knights are rolling into the state playoffs as they beat the Franklin Pierce Cardinals 66-34 in the championship game of the District 3 2A boys basketball tournament Feb. 22 at Mount Tahoma High School.

Meanwhile, the No. 4 seed Bainbridge Spartans won a loser-out game at No. 11 seed Foss High School Feb. 22 61-48, earning a state bid. Foss eliminated No. 10 seed Olympic 59-56 Feb. 21.

Both the Knights and the Cardinals got out to fast starts and were tied at 10 apiece with three minutes remaining in the first quarter. The last three minutes spelled different outcomes for both teams.

The Knights went on a 10-0 run, largely due to its full-court press defense that forced turnovers and generated fastbreak scores. Bremerton led 22-10 at the end of the first.

Franklin Pierce came out in the second quarter playing full-court press defense in an attempt to slow down the potent Knight offense and generate some offense of their own. The strategy proved to work, as the Cardinals were able to go on a 6-0 scoring run, allowing themselves to get back in the game.

Nonetheless, sophomore Aaron Matthews was able to cure the Knights’ scoring drought, sinking a three-pointer. The Matthews score sparked a 7-0 Bremerton scoring run, allowing the Knights to get back to a double-digit lead at 32-19 with a minute remaining in the second.

Bremerton led 34-22 at halftime.

The Knights kicked off the third quarter with an Enoch Taylor three-pointer. The Cardinals came out of halftime committing consecutive turnovers, allowing the Knights to score off of them.

Bremerton jumped out to its largest lead of the game at 19 after Knight Frank Allen put in a layup after a forced turnover. A Jaydon Turner three-pointer made the score 52-28 at the end of the third.

The Knight defense continued to be a dominant force in the fourth quarter, still forcing turnovers and controlling the overall tempo of the game, not allowing a Franklin Pierce score for the first four minutes of the period.

Bremerton doubled Franklin Pierce’s point total with three minutes left in the game.

The Bremerton Knights imposed its will early and efficiently against the Spartans in the District 3 2A semifinals, winning comfortably 65-44 Feb. 21 at Foss High School to earn its way back to the state tournament for the second straight season.

Bremerton and Bainbridge split their two games in the regular season, but sophomore guard Jalen Davis’ 32 points led the Knights to victory this time around. The Knights finished fifth in state last season but have higher hopes this year.

“We [weren’t] in relaxed mode by any means,” Bremerton coach Jeremiah Davis said. “We’re going to enjoy this one tonight.”

The Spartan offense could not find its way at the beginning of the game, largely due to the imposing Bremerton defense.

Bainbridge only managed to make three field goals in the first quarter while the Knights were able to get to the bucket consistently through fastbreak points. Davis accounted for a majority of their points in the first, tallying six.

Bremerton led 17-4 after the first.

The second quarter saw the Spartans find some life on offense with a Charlie Hill field goal within the first minute. Nonetheless, the Spartans continued to commit turnovers and failed to convert on many of its field goal attempts.

The Knights increased their lead to 38-16 at halftime

“We tried a couple of things defensively to change it up,” Bainbridge coach Will Ferris said. “It’s just the defensive principles that we work on in practice every day weren’t really expressed.”

The beginning of the third quarter saw the Spartans and Knights remain evenly matched on the offensive side of the ball, but Bainbridge continued to struggle with the turnover bug.

In an attempt to slow the Knights down, Bainbridge implemented a full-court press for the first time all game, but Allen was able to hit a three-pointer to cap off the third, giving the Knights a 54-26 lead entering the fourth quarter.

Despite a higher-scoring second half, Bainbridge had already dug themselves an insurmountable hole by the end of the third. Both teams began putting their backups in with three minutes remaining in the game.

“We gave more effort down 30 than we did at the start of the game,” Spartan Kaden Thielmann said.