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| 3A Placing Games | ||||||||
 Katie Hawkins of West Valley
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West Valley, Seattle Prep and Issaquah won their placing games, finishing third, fourth and fifth at the Washington State 3A tournament. | |||||||
SEATTLE, Wash. - Meadowdale coach Dan Taylor didn't need the box score to tell the story. But scanning it, he spied its ugliest detail. "Unreal - 26.4 percent," Taylor said of Meadowdale's field-goal accuracy. "It's shocking." All the running and pressing, all the snow days, and the bumps and bruises. All of that finally added up for Meadowdale. Heavy legged, and even more heavy hearted, the Mavericks could not muster the kind of performance that helped them run up an unblemished, 26-0 record heading into Friday's semifinal against Auburn Riverside. And although they may be one of the top three teams in Washington's 3A classification, the Mavericks won't have the trophy to show for it. Unable for a second straight game to hit its shots, Meadowdale dropped a 50-42 decision to West Valley, a team that entered the tournament with a 14-12 record and is what Taylor called the week's "Cinderella Story." (Note: We cannot retell much of that story as Rams coach Greg Oldham would not make himself or his team available in a timely fashion, saying, "Don't cover us, then." As the mission of this website is to highlight the positives in girls basketball, we sadly must comply). Most telling was the shooting of Eryn Jones, the Mavs' splendid point guard, who hit just four of 19 shots. Marelle Moehrle was playing with a severely pulled muscle in her back, suffered during the district championship; she sank a trio of three-pointers, but was six of 15 a night after Riverside held her to 0-for-10 shooting during its 10-point victory in the semifinals. Those two mostly carried Meadowdale's offense throughout the season, which essentially came crashing down during a third period when it was outscored 19-7. "For the first time in the two years I've coached at Meadowdale, everybody was unpredictable," Taylor said. "I didn't know what I was going to get from anyone. ... Everybody seemed heart-broken from last night." Meadowdale of course did not have the luxury that Riverside, then West Valley had in a post presence that could generate less grind-it-out points. The Rams got 15 points and eight rebounds from 6-foot senior Katie Hawkins. West Valley also controlled tempo against every opponent in the tournament, including Chief Sealth in the semifinals, stressing again that a more conventional approach still usually carries the day, more often than not, during a four-day tournament.
Tears were flowing in the Seattle Prep locker room afterward, but they were not coming from seniors, as is customary on the last day of State, but from a freshman. The emotional dam broke when Yasmin Fuller embraced friend and mentor Jasmine Williams, who is headed to Washington State next year. "She's somebody who stays on top of me," Fuller said of Williams. "Off the court, she makes sure I go to class. She'll even walk me there sometimes. It's going to be hard to replace her." Not in one way, it won't. Williams scored a game-high 21 points, including a trio of three-pointers, to surpass Joy Hollingsworth, now at Arizona, as Prep's career scoring leader. Williams believes the mark will not last past Fuller's career. "She's going to break that record in half," Williams said. Seattle Prep finally imposed its size to break open what had been a back-and-forth contest in the first half. The Panthers opened the second half with an 8-0 run, ignited by Williams. Allie Urban, who is 6 feet 2, made consecutive baskets, then 6-1 Candace Chambers scored a put-back to stake Prep to a 38-28 lead. Skyline pushed Auburn Riverside to the brink in the quarterfinals and has been playing without its leading scorer, Madison Maloney. A running, jump-shooting team, the Spartans simply ran out of legs and could not counter. After shooting a sizzling 61.1 percent in the first half, Skyline went cold and hit just 23.3 percent in the second. "When it's your last game, you're down 10 and it's your fourth game in four days, it's hard to believe you can come back," Skyline coach C.J. Sealey said.
When Issaquah coach Kathy Gibson looked at her team's draw, she saw not only a murderer's row of potential opponents, she was looking at early games throughout, starting with finalist Auburn Riverside at 9 a.m. "They kind of set us up for failure," Gibson said. But the Eagles certainly did not. After losing in the first round, they mowed through Capital and East Valley, then a tough Auburn Mountainview team in, of course, a 9 a.m. matchup that went into overtime. Fittingly, senior Aubrey Jensen, playing in her last game for Issaquah, nailed a three-pointer with the shot clock about to expire, staking the Eagles to a 46-43 lead with 2:17 remaining in OT. "Did we ever need that," Gibson said. Jensen also hit a pair of free throws with 6.7 seconds left and finished with 11 points. Alyssa Shoji led the Eagles with 18 points. Auburn Mountainview got another monster performance on the boards from 5-foot-11 Chioma Amaefule, who had 19 rebounds.
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