Wracked by injuries midway through the regular season, it was a huge achievement for the 627th Logistics Readiness Squadron's intramural basketball team to even get to the postseason.

A stellar run to the McChord Field intramural championship was the icing on the cake.

The long list of benchmarks softened the blow a bit when the LRS team suffered a 44-36 defeat to the Army's Alpha Company, 46th Aviation Support Battalion in the Joint Base Lewis-McChord DFMWR base championship game March 15 at Soldiers Field House.

"I'm proud of my guys," said LRS player/coach Aharon Goins. "(The performance) showed we had some resilient guys. They didn't give up ... they fought to the end."

After jumping out to a strong start to the season, the injury bug hit LRS hard. The team lost starting point guard Mikahl Lampkin to a broken toe and forward Nicholas Eppert to a broken finger. Goins also missed two games with a toe injury.

"It was tough," the 6-foot-5 Goins said of the injuries.

But it forced the team to pull together. LRS got into the playoffs, then won three games in three nights, eventually knocking off the 373rd Training Squadron, 44-41, in the McChord Field championship game.

"By the time the playoffs started, we were really playing like a team," said Goins, a Baltimore native. "We didn't fold (against the 373rd). They had beaten us twice during the regular season. It was the most rewarding base championship I've won in my career."

The team tired to continue the strong run in the JBLM championship, but fatigue eventually caught up.

LRS led ASB, 24-20, at halftime, but couldn't hang on and finish the job. The Air Force team shot 25 percent from the field in the second half and came up short. Ryan Perkins led LRS with 12 points.  

"We were making shots in the first half, then our legs got tired," said Goins, who won a gold medal as a member of the All Air Force basketball team in 2010. "My team was exhausted."

Goins, the oldest player on the team at 31 years old, was proud of his team, and said players got a nice emotional boost from LRS leadership that attended the championship game on JBLM.

"I heard our commander cheering in the stands," he said with a laugh.

The LRS roster included Goins, Perkins, Lampkin, Christopher Mott, Supreme Jones, Jacob McDougall, Mason Frazier, Tyler Stuart, Raec Schwarzbach and Terence Waldenalford.