BELLEVUE — Nick Brown knew his strategy in the final minutes of the game may have sounded cliche.
“Score, stop, score and stop again,” said Brown. “That was about it.”

Who cares what a strategy sounds like when it earns a spot at regionals?

The Eagles came back from trailing by five with less than two minutes remaining to beat Newport 56-51 in front of a standing-room-only crowd.

“I don’t know how we do it,” said senior guard Zach Cooper. “We make a habit of getting down but, I don’t know, we make our shots, we get stops and we pull it out.”

Cooper was the catalyst of a comeback Feb. 22, as he hit a 3-pointer in the quarter, got a steal and then hit four consecutive free throws to help the Eagles earn 53-48 lead with less than a minute remaining.

“It just went back to my being at my court at home and needing to make the shots,” said Cooper.
The Eagles held a 22-13 advantage early in the game, but couldn’t sustain it as they started playing too loose with the ball.

“There were some times when they couldn’t hear me,” said Brown. “And that’s when you saw guys out of position and that’s on me, because I need to teach them how to play without me yelling.”

A compact Newport gym made for a noisy atmosphere that left both teams hard of hearing.
“For a few minutes there, I couldn’t hear the refs whistling,” said Cooper.

Newport took advantage of Arlington’s defensive confusion to the tune of a 18-4 run in the second quarter.
Newport took a 31-26 lead into halftime.

But the Eagles settled down in the second half, a style of play that suits senior Eric Carlson, who scored 12 of his team-high 18 points in the second half.

Cooper had 14 points for the Eagles and sophomore Terry Dawn added eight.

The win puts the Eagles in a regional, loser-out matchup with Kentridge, Feb. 25, at 5:45 p.m., at Jackson High School.

Kentridge features one of the top players in the state, Gary Bell, a Gonzaga commit who averages almost 29 points per contest.