LANGLEY – King’s claimed the crown as the top team in the Cascade Conference with a convincing 84-43 win over South Whidbey Tuesday.

King’s now sits atop the conference with a 12-1 record (15-4 overall), while the Falcons are at 5-6 in league play and smack-dab in a horse race with Cedarcrest, Archbishop Murphy and Lakewood for one of three automatic berths to the District 1 playoffs.

“We were flat,” said Falcon coach Chris Ferrier.

“King’s got a key player back, and they dominated from the get-go,” Ferrier said, referring to Karl Clocksin, a 6-foot-4 forward who has been the Knights’ top rebounder and number-two scorer.

King’s started to heat up toward the end of the first quarter, stoked by a three-pointer from the left corner of the arc by Daniel Cheledinas that put the Knight’s ahead, 15-6.

The Falcons’ Jordan Thornley kept the gap at nine points by sinking two from the line just before the end of the quarter, with the score at 17-8.

Clocksin took over at the start of the second, scoring the next seven points from inside to put King’s in front, 24-10.

After a subsequent Knights’ basket and a South Whidbey timeout, the Falcon faithful were given a glimmer of hope when Riley Newman collected a rebound and dropped a three-pointer to make it 26-13.

The Knights’ Ryan Hoff, however, answered with a trey of his own, and teammate Sean Brugger quickly added five points to the King’s total to put the score at 36-20 at halftime.

The Falcons’ limited offense continued to haunt them in the second half. King’s outscored South Whidbey 25-13 in the third, and 23-10 in the fourth.

Newman led South Whidbey with 10 points. Thornley contributed nine, Cole Erikson added eight, Andy Bennett had seven. Shelby Ball added four, Sam Lee had two and Tyler “Chuck” Norris had three.

Brugger led King’s with 16 points and was one of five Knights to score in the double digits.

King’s and Coupeville (10-3), both 1A teams, will advance to the playoffs, while the 2A teams of Cedarcrest (7-5), Archbishop Murphy (6-5) remain in front for two of the three automatic berths.

Lakewood and South Whidbey both stand at 5-6 in the conference.

The Falcons will face Lakewood in the last game of the regular season, at home on Friday, Feb. 19.

Before then, though, South Whidbey will square off against Granite Falls on Thursday in Langley, followed by a trip to Archbishop Murphy on Tuesday, Feb. 16.

“We’re going to continue to move forward and prepare for the last three games of the season,” said coach Ferrier.