SNOHOMISH — It takes a near perfect game to beat the Lynnwood girls basketball team.
Todd Beamer had been the only team able to do it this season, beating the Royals at the ShoWare Center in mid-January. No other team has even come close, as all of their 17 victories have come by at least 18 points.
Until Friday night.
After falling by 25 to the No. 1-ranked Royals earlier in the season, No. 5 Glacier Peak reversed its fortune and knocked off Lynnwood 61-49.
On her senior night, it was a victory guard Sadie Mensing will never forget.
“I’m so proud of us and so excited,” Mensing said. “It’s the best senior night I could ever ask for.”
The earlier season loss didn’t seem to bother Mensing and her teammates, who never backed down to anything the Royals threw at them.
“We were just so excited because we knew we could do better than we did last time and we just wanted to go hard and have fun and play as a team,” Mensing said. “We did and it was awesome.”
Glacier Peak head coach Brian Hill saw a team that was willing to do what it took to beat Lynnwood, which is to eliminate mistakes and play hard for a full 32 minutes.
“I saw them mature tonight,” Hill said. “I know they’re good basketball players, but I saw them mature and accept fundamental basketball. That’s all Lynnwood does too. They’re a fundamental, hard-nosed basketball team — very blue-collar. That’s what we tried to do tonight is play blue-collar basketball.”
The Royals led for most of the first half, but the Grizzlies never allowed them to pull away. Lynnwood pushed its lead up to seven points mid-way through the second quarter and it stood at six with just over a minute remaining before Glacier Peak senior Kianna Garner and sophomore Kayla Watkins connected on back-to-back 3-pointers to end the first half and tie the score at 29.
It was the second half that was a problem for the Grizzlies the first time around and they made sure it wouldn’t be a problem again.
“I thought we did a really good job the first time we played them in the first half,” Hill said. “One of the (reasons) was instead of backing away from their pressure we tried to handle it and keep our composure a little bit more. The first time I don’t know that we actually ran very many offenses in the second half, so tonight we wanted to make sure that we were running some offense and getting some scores.”
The Grizzlies took just their third lead of the game with 5:43 remaining in the third quarter, but they never trailed again.
Glacier Peak led 42-39 after three quarters and scored the first four points of the fourth to push its lead up to seven. Moments later, junior Natalie Rasmussen pushed it to nine with her third 3-pointer of the game.
Usually reliant on their pressure defense, it was the Royals that were getting beaten by their own game. Glacier Peak allowed just 20 points in the second half and the Royals shot just 4-for-22 in that time.
“We’ve always been a pretty good defensive team and I think sometimes we try to use our athleticism to create more than we can create,” Hill said. “Tonight, each person just had to do their job and not rely on anyone else to try to contain. But at the same time, it’s team defense too. Help out when you need to help out. I thought our defense tonight was really good. We contested outside shots and we took away some of their inside stuff.”
On offense, the Grizzlies did what most teams haven’t been able to do for the better part of the past two seasons — handle Lynnwood’s pressure.
“It’s really hard because it feels like there’s six or seven kids out there on their team when their playing defense,” Hill said. “They’re just everywhere. They’re a great defensive team and we know that their defense contributes to a lot of their points, so we had to make sure that we handled their defense and not give them the easy buckets.”
Down the stretch, Glacier Peak’s lead was too much for the Royals to overcome. A technical foul against Lynnwood for having too many players on the floor with 47.1 second remaining in the game closed the door on whatever slim chances it had left.
“For us to beat them gives us a little bit of confidence knowing what we can do,” Hill said. “It probably made them mad and stirred up the hornets’ nest a little bit, so hopefully that doesn’t come back and sting us.”
At Glacier Peak H.S.
Lynnwood 17 12 10 10 —49
Glacier Peak 13 16 13 19 —61
Lynnwood—Madison Eyer 0, Reilly Walsh 2, Monty Cooper 11, Jordyn Edwards 4, Mikayla Pivec 19, Sarah Grant 0, Kelsey Rogers 5, Kaprice Boston 4, Taylor Fahey 0, Dani Hayes 4. Glacier Peak—Paisley Johnson 9, Samantha Fatkin 9, Sadie Mensing 12, Kayla Watkins 15, Natalie Rasmussen 13, Maya McFadden 0, Charlie Sevenants 0, Sierra Nash 0, Kianna Garner 3. 3-point goals—Lynnwood: Hayes 1, Cooper 1, Edwards 1. Glacier Peak: Fatkin 1, Rasmussen 3, Garner 1, Watkins 1. Records—Lynnwood 10-1 league, 17-2 overall. Glacier Peak 9-2, 17-2.
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
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