For the first time in awhile, the Marysville Pilchuck basketball team played some big games this season.
The Tomahawks, who hadn’t been to the state tournament since 1993, found themselves competing for a Wesco 3A North title, as well as for a state berth just two years after posting a 1-19 record.
Marysville Pilchuck head coach Bary Gould would have been nervous, if not for his star senior.
“Often times, I’d get a little nervous before a game,” Gould said. “And then I’d go, ‘Wait a minute. I’ve got Michael Painter. Are you kidding?’ We’re fine.”
Painter was the leading scorer on a Marysville Pilchuck team that went 19-8 and returned to the Tacoma Dome for the first time since Gould was a senior with the Tomahawks. Painter’s efforts and his leadership on and off the court have earned him The Herald’s 2015 Boys Basketball Player of the Year award.
“I don’t know if you’re naturally gifted to be a leader, or if somehow he’s learned those traits over time,” Gould said. “I’ve had captains before — and kids who were leaders — but he’s a kid you want every single person to follow what he does. He works hard in practice, he’s giving people rides so they’re not late, calling people up to make sure they know what’s going on.
“He’s the consummate leader. He’s a one-in-a-million type of player, a very special kid and a wonderful person. Oh, and he’s a good basketball player as well.”
The versatile, 6-foot-4 wing played every position on the floor this season. Painter averaged 16 points, six rebounds and four assists per game, was a first-team All-Wesco selection and is an alternate to the all-state game.
Painter is hoping to play shooting guard in college, and is deciding between Fresno Pacific University (Fresno, California), Minot State University (Minot, North Dakota) and Saint Martin’s University in Lacey.
“He wants to play for sure,” Gould said. “I think that’s really the only thing that anyone’s sure of — is that he will be playing basketball. He’s going to thrive wherever he goes.”
Painter certainly thrived for Marysville Pilchuck. It seemed the bigger the game, the bigger his performance. He scored 25 points in a district semifinal loss to Glacier Peak before helping rally his team through the consolation bracket to earn the district’s third and final seed to regionals.
Painter followed that up with a game-high 24 points, including a 7-for-8 effort, from the free-throw line to help the Tomahawks hold off Kennewick 51-47.
“The top moment for myself would be after the Kennewick game, when Nate (Heckendorf) passed me the ball and I held it as time expired,” Painter said. “The whole team ran to me and we were celebrating the win and just realizing that we were going to the dome.”
At the Tacoma Dome, the Tomahawks led their quarterfinal game against No. 6 Eastside Catholic going into the fourth quarter. Painter finished with 15 points and seven rebounds. Although the Tomahawks ended up losing to the Crusaders — and to No. 2 Bellevue in a loser-out game — the experience was worth it, Painter said.
“It really hit me after it all happened,” Painter said. “After the Eastside Catholic and the Bellevue game, just realizing that we went that far really hit me a couple days after we got back from Tacoma. Not many teams get to make it that far. We wanted to go out there and win some games. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to do that. But to take a look at the lights and the people watching and the significance of the event was really cool.”
“We saw it at the end of this year — he is just a gamer,” Gould said. “If our other guys were hitting he’d have 10 or 12 (points). If they weren’t, he’d step up and that’s when he’d have 24 or 36. At the end of that Eastside Catholic game, he had two defenders on him and he got by them and dumped the ball off to somebody else. I had to pull him over to the sideline and I said, ‘Mike, don’t pass. We want the ball in your hands.’”
Late in the 81-45 loss to Bellevue — Painter’s final high school game — a teammate of Painter’s shot an air ball on a free-throw attempt. The player looked visibly upset before Painter came over to pat him on the back, smile and say something to his fellow Tomahawk.
“He just is really cognizant of certain situations,” Gould said. “Obviously, he was feeling hurt and pained and didn’t want to get beat by 30. But he knew what that player needed. That’s exactly who he is. That epitomizes Michael Painter right there.”
Getting to the Tacoma Dome was a special ending to a season that began just a few weeks after a fatal shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School on Oct. 24.
“When the basketball team started and tryouts happened, (the shooting) was still kind of fresh,” Painter said. “It had been awhile but our school was still focused on that. A lot of guys wanted to show that our community, our program, our school was more than one incident.
“I think we achieved that.”
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