Every one lost, as a team.

Led by a 1-for-13, first-half, three-point, shooting percentage, the Mount Rainer boys basketball team's hopes of getting to state easy were dashed by the lucky Peninsula Seahawks, who took advantage of that first and second quarter shooting awfulness of the Rams in a 62-53 win in a West Central/Southwest 3A District playoff game Saturday.

Fortunately, the Rams had, as of this writing, one more chance to get on the road to instant recovery and make state, by playing league rival, Kennedy. Winner in, loser out.

"We didn't shoot the three well in the first half," said Rams head coach Brian Johnson. Players that usually make them, like senior captain Alfie Miller, went 0-for-6. Another three capable player, Tyrell Lewis, shot 0-for-4 in the first half of play. "We shot horribly tonight."

For a team that lives and dies by it's three-point shooting, the Rams bit the big one in this. Plain and simple. Because of that unspeakably awful start, when the Rams did catch up to actually take the lead, 29-28, with 3:00 left in the third quarter still, they were tired from working so hard to get to that, 15-4, second-half, opening-run.

Defense, which did its thing in causing seven Seahawk turnovers in the third quarter, was helped by offense of the likes of Miller, who downed three three-point shots and another two-pointer to open the scoring in the third quarter, nestled in there with a Jon Morine three-point play, making a free throw after a nice drive. All that said, the Rams trailed the Seahawks, 35-34, going into the fourth quarter.

But it would be there that the Rams would self-destruct defensively, allowing easy, high-percentage shots (layups mostly) for the Seahawks throughout the fourth. After that great comeback, outscoring the Seahawks, 19-11, in the third quarter, the Rams were outscored, 27-19, in the fourth. The 12-for-16 free throw shooting during the fourth for the foe hurt, too. It was defense that helped get the Rams back in it and defense that let them down, too. Free throw shooting wasn't kind either, 3-for-10 for the game, that's a 11-point difference there because the Seahawks made those free throws from players getting to players going for layups late and fouling. The Seahawks made 14-for-21 from the free throw line for the game.

"Our rotation was bad," said Morine, a senior captain and leading rebounder and scorer on the team along with Miller, also a captain and scorer. "It was the whole group's fault. We have to play defense as a team and we didn't do that tonight."

Vonchae Richardson, who had a good fourth quarter, scoring a bucket to tie it at 44-44 and then a little later another to keep the wound from opening up bigger, making it 50-46 Seahawks, said the same words, "It was the team's fault. The backside needs to rotate quicker."

The Seahawks could always match a Rams spectacular three-pointer in the fourth quarter, and Miller hit two in that frame, to note, with their retort of just having to make an easy basket, usually, from, as Morine and Richardson said, bad rotation on defense -- of their pressure defense.

The Rams made 8-for-30 from three-point range, battling back for a 4-for-9 third quarter shooting the tre and 3-for-8 in the fourth. If that number had been higher than 35 percent range the third quarter and 36 percent the fourth the Seahawks would have never been in this one like so many opponents of the Rams have found out this season.

That and the defense were the two easy things to see that bit into the Rams chances of coming away from Clover Park High School with a win.

"We weren't rotating in the back and were giving up lay-ups, giving up passes," said Johnson. "Our full-court press wasn't rotating back. We covered it all week in practice, it was just a lack of execution."

Tired players maybe?

"Shouldn't be,," said Johnson. "We haven't played in a week."

Mount Rainier lost to Lakes to open districts before coming back and beating Fort Vancouver.

Now Johnson must get one more win to continue his good streak of getting the Rams to state.

"We win and we go to state for the third year in a row," he said.

So what about this team, what do they have to do?

"We need to recover and get it done," said Johnson.