YAKIMA — In a 21-hour span, improbability became the norm for a Tumwater Thunderbirds team whose dream of a state championship was over.
The headline of the 2025-26 season should be that Tumwater finished its best season in program history with a record 24 wins. Another option could be that the team bounced back from a quarterfinals loss to Anacortes on Thursday to win twice and earn its third fourth-place state trophy in five years.
But those headlines, while accurate, wouldn’t begin to describe what the T-Birds pulled off this weekend in the Yakima Valley SunDome to hoist that fourth-place trophy.
One day after completing a 14-point second-half comeback in an elimination game against Renton on Friday, Tumwater did the unthinkable again, rallying from 12 down with two minutes left to stun Grandview 50-49 Saturday morning in the fourth-place game. Julian Balsley delivered the game-winning 3-pointer with 6.5 seconds left, and Luke Overbay blocked the prayer 3-point attempt from Francisco Medina as time ran out.
So with the back-to-back miracles in such a short span of time, the questions ask themselves: what is Tumwater made of? What is the recipe for its chaotic success?
“No quit,” Tumwater head coach Josh Wilson said. “When they decide to be tough, it’s a whole other thing.”
“It’s T-Bird toughness,” Balsley added.
The story of the fourth-place game against Grandview was eerily similar to Friday’s elimination game against Renton, as impossible as that game may have been to repeat. Tumwater had struggled to score and take care of the basketball in first halves all tournament, but Saturday’s game was a different level of offensive difficulty.
The T-Birds shot an abysmal 5 of 32 from the field, including 0 of 11 from 3-point range, with eight turnovers. Overbay got to work early in the first quarter with seven points as Tumwater made four field goals in the frame to take a 12-10 lead through one quarter. But in the second quarter, an Overbay putback layup 40 seconds into the stanza was the only field goal Tumwater would score for the remainder of the first half.
Medina came alive in the second quarter, nabbing two steals and returning them for layups. The only edge that kept Tumwater in the game in the first half was its dominance on the offensive glass, as the T-Birds pulled down 13 offensive rebounds in just the first 16 minutes. Somehow, despite the poor shooting, Tumwater only trailed 23-18 at half.
“That seems like a theme, doesn’t it?” Wilson said of his team’s first-half struggles this tournament. “All this week, we’ve had terrible first halves.”
Landon Anchors brought some juice to the Tumwater offense early in the third quarter, splashing a 3-pointer for his first field goal after missing all seven of his shots in the first half. Grandview maintained a comfortable, but not yet sizable, lead in the third thanks to a 3-pointer by Nathan Montes De Oca and timely buckets from Medina.
Up by nine heading to the fourth, the Greyhounds took their biggest lead of the game via a Jason Richey triple to put them ahead by a dozen. Balsley, who started the game 0 of 7, found an open lane for a layup, and Anchors drilled a trey off yet another Tumwater offensive board to cut the margin to seven. The Greyhounds quickly regained their 12-point lead, capitalizing off of two T-Birds turnovers. With 2:13 remaining, Tumwater trailed 46-34. In a 20-second spurt, Overbay and Balsley each made 3-pointers to slice the lead in half. Soon, Wilson knew his team would have to start fouling to slow the game down with one minute left, but his team only had one team foul in the fourth.
By some unexplainable act of the basketball gods, Tumwater fouled four times to get Grandview in the bonus without the Greyhounds scoring a single point. Grandview missed an open layup off an inbound, and Overbay threw down a dunk to bring the T-Birds within four with 39.5 seconds left.
Montes De Oca missed a pair of free throws, and Balsley sprinted to the basket for a quick layup. All of a sudden, it was 46-44 Grandview with 30 seconds left thanks to a 10-0 run by Tumwater.
Darius Montelongo converted on a pair of free throws to bump the Greyhounds back up four with 25 ticks remaining, and only six seconds later, Anchors nailed a 3-pointer to make it a one-point game. Medina split a pair of free throws, and, trailing 49-47 with 14.5 seconds left and having a timeout in its pocket, Tumwater had a chance to take its pick of how to tie or take the lead.
Owen Reamer brought the ball past halfcourt and found himself heading toward the baseline, taking enough steps to warrant the Grandview parents screaming for a travel that was not called. The right wing opened up for Balsley, who received a pass from Reamer and, without hesitation, fired a 3-pointer, knocking down the go-ahead bucket with 6.5 seconds to play. Tumwater fans erupted as their team was mere seconds away from pulling another rabbit out of its hat.
“I had full confidence that I could knock that down. I stepped right into it and hit it,” Balsley said. “It felt so good. It was an amazing shot.”
Out of the timeout, Medina caught the inbound pass around his own 3-point line, dribbled to about 35 feet away from the hoop and hoisted a 3-pointer, which was blocked by Overbay, who was able to save the ball inbounds to prevent Grandview from having any time left.
“After the timeout [after Balsley’s shot], we were all going crazy. In the huddle, our coaches were saying, ‘Don’t foul. Hands straight up,’” Overbay said of the final play. “I saw [Medina] drive. I knew he was gonna shoot it. He’s not the tallest guy, so I knew I’d get him. I was scared that it would go out of bounds. It was so emotional for me because I got to watch my brother play here and get fourth place.”
Outside of the locker room after the loud postgame celebration, the Tumwater coaching staff was out of breath as if it had just played a 32-minute game in shorts and jerseys. But the T-Birds capped off a 24-4 season with their third fourth-place trophy in five years in stunning fashion with one all-time game following another.
“I guess we’re king of the fourth-place games,” Wilson joked. “This is not a fluke. We are a good team. We should be here. If you go in our gym, it says ‘Final Four’ across the big beam up top. When I first got here, it was 1976 and that was it. It was empty. We got fourth in 2022, hoped to do a little better in 2023 but it ended up fantastic and we got another one up there, and now we’re going to have a 2026 one that these boys can have up there forever.”
Tumwater graduates two seniors: Max Bunn and Braeden Konrad. After the game, they wore the team’s signature “Charge the Storm” horned hats that go to the most outstanding players after each win.
“They’re the nicest, best kids in the whole wide world. They’ve been part of the program forever. They always put their team first,” Wilson said of the seniors. “I love those guys to death. They’ve been great T-Birds.”
Next year, the T-Birds are poised to make another deep state run as the majority of their core will be seniors, including Balsley, Anchors, Overbay, Ethan Bello, Reamer and Jake Reid. Tumwater is hoping to break the fourth-place tradition and do something it has never done — win a state championship.
“We’re taking it all. We want it all,” Overbay said.
