LYNNWOOD — Now that Meadowdale has its fourth-quarter game strategy worked out, it’s time to focus on the fourth quarter of the season.
In their regular-season home finale Tuesday night, the Mavericks found themselves in a bitter battle with Kamiak through three periods. Then came the fourth quarter, a 9-0 run and a 59-49 Meadowdale win that was made to look easy.
It wasn’t, however, anything new to the Mavericks, who finish their Wesco South regular season Thursday at Shorewood, trailing Edmonds-Woodway by a game for the league championship.
“We’ve been pretty good in the fourth quarter this season,” Meadowdale head coach Chad McGuire said. “We put a lot of emphasis on grabbing the lead early in the fourth, and we did that tonight.”
Matt Gorman led the Mavericks with 21 points and scored 17 of those in the second half.
It was 38-38 going into the final frame and still 43-43 when Gorman came up with a three-point play that sparked a 9-0 Meadowdale run to make it 52-43 with just two minutes, 26 seconds to play. The lead never got smaller than seven after that.
“In the fourth quarter, things just started clicking,” Gorman said. “We came out strong, made our run and it was over from there. We were really passionate in that quarter.”
While Gorman took care of much of the inside, teammate Teagan Dooley was connecting from the outside en route to 15 points. Seven of those came during a five-minute stretch to open the game in which Dooley was joined by four non-regular starters because of Senior Night.
Those seniors gave the Mavericks a five-point lead to start it out, before the other seniors extended the gap five more points late in the period.
“It’s a good group of seniors we have,” said Gorman, one of the nine seniors on the team. “Everyone likes everyone. There are a lot of nice guys.”
Kamiak, which was led by Meka Este-McDonald’s 15 points, did its best in trying to send the seniors out on a sour note. McDonald helped the Knights stay within four by halftime with 13 first-half points, before a layup from Jared Parcells and a 3-point field goal by Skylar Stormo to start the second half gave them a 24-23 lead.
In the third, there were six lead changes and four ties. Kamiak’s Andrew Dremlyuga came off the bench to score seven points, leading the way to five different Knights’ leads, before the period ended in a 38-all tie.
Kamiak simply couldn’t add to the scoreboard in the fourth period, notching only six points the final five-plus minutes.
“We started getting stops defensively. It’s impossible to go on runs, unless you string a lot of stops together. Usually the first team to do that wins,” McGuire said. “Kamiak had a lot to do with how close that game was. They play great defense, they’re physical and they’re well-coached. This was a good game to prepare us for the postseason.”
At Meadowdale H.S.
Kamiak6131911—49
Meadowdale9141521—59
Kamiak — Este-McDonald 15, Stormo 11, Dremlyuga 11, Ruppel 6, Parcells 6, Ju. Glenn, Jo. Glenn. Meadowdale — Gorman 21, Dooley 15, Werner 12, Matteson 9, O’Neill 2, Epstein, Beeson, Church, Nelson. 3-point field goals — Este-McDonald 3, Dremlyuga 2, Werner 2, Dooley 1, Ruppel 1, Stormo 1. Records — Meadowdale 16-3 overall, 12-3 league. Kamiak 7-11, 6-9.
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