SNOHOMISH — The first half didn’t go quite the way the Glacier Peak girls basketball team hoped it would.
The second half, however, couldn’t have gone much better for the Grizzlies.
Glacier Peak outscored crosstown rival Snohomish 33-20 in the second half to come from behind and clinch a 43-37 non-conference win over the Panthers at Glacier Peak High School Wednesday night.
“We knew it was going to be a low-scoring game,” Grizzlies head coach Brian Hill said. “… We’re just happy to come away with the win. Snohomish is a great team. They’re tough and they’re going to be tough. I hope they do well. That was a good win for us. We saw that we can do a lot of good things and hopefully we can continue to get better.”
The Glacier Peak offense struggled in the first half, netting just 10 points — all from junior point guard Samantha Fatkin. It was almost a minute into the third quarter before the first non-Fatkin points were scored for the Grizzlies.
Then junior post Kayla Watkins took over.
Glacier Peak worked the ball in to the 6-foot-1 Watkins who scored 10 points — all in the second half — and added 12 rebounds to help fuel the Grizzlies’ comeback.
“We’re going to keep feeding her if she keeps doing well,” Hill said. “She did a great job in there defensively and offensively for us. She got some big boards and finished some big hoops.”
“When me and Kayla work together it’s something special,” Fatkin said. “I love playing with her.”
Fatkin finished with a game-high 18 points for Glacier Peak (2-0 overall) after keeping the Grizzlies’ offense afloat in the first half. She was also Glacier Peak’s leading scorer in the Grizzlies’ 55-50 victory over the Panthers last season.
“She’s such a great point guard,” Hill said. “She really controlled the tempo for us when we were able to get out and run a couple times. She got us out on the fast break and just did a great job defensively tonight.”
Glacier Peak struggled against their rivals in the first two quarters, with most of the Grizzlies’ points coming on fastbreaks by Fatkin. They trailed Snohomish 17-10 at the end of a low-scoring first half.
“We were down but that didn’t bring us down,” Watkins said. “We knew we had to get fired up. During halftime we all talked to each other and said, ‘Let’s go’ and it all clicked in the second half.”
“(Hill) just told us we had to come out and play harder and not settle for anything, because Snohomish doesn’t quit fighting,” Fatkin said. “And we never gave up. We came back as a team in the second half.”
In the later quarters it was the Snohomish offense that had difficulties. The Panthers made just two field goals in the fourth quarter as they tried to close the gap after the Grizzlies built up an eight-point lead.
“We’ll shoot better than that normally,” said Snohomish head coach Ken Roberts. “We have some kids that have improved as shooters. That’s what I told our coaches and our kids: teams have to do things to stop us. They have to take away our bigs or they’re going to get killed inside. … It’s just a matter of making a few of those (shots).
“Their girls made plays in the second half,” Roberts continued. “There were some 50-50 rebounds that I thought they beat us to. A lot of it comes down to who’s going to make the plays. I thought in the first half we were all over the boards and then in the second half, (there’s) probably a little fatigue, but with Kayla Watkins posting up our kids have to be real active with her because you’re not going to push her out of there. And they got the ball in to her.”
Senior Madison Pollock led Snohomish with 16 points and nine rebounds. Fellow senior Shaylee Harwood had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds and Madeline Smith added six points and nine rebounds for the Panthers in their season opener.
Roberts praised Pollock and said the forward, who was a first-team all-league selection last season, has improved immensely in the offseason.
“I think she’s probably improved as much as any player I’ve ever had between her junior and senior year,” Roberts said. “And we’ve had some really big improvement from some kids in those years. But she is going to be a great player for us all year.”
Wednesday night’s contest was a fun matchup for both squads — who know each other pretty well — as well as the coaches who also have a history. Hill coached under Roberts at Snohomish for three years before taking the job at Glacier Peak.
“It’s definitely a really fun game,” Watkins said. “It’s a rivalry game and it’s always fun to play them. As a team, we all respect them.”
“It’s so fun. I love playing against Snohomish,” Fatkin added. “We respect them a lot and we don’t like to lose to them. So, we knew we had to win tonight.”
At Glacier Peak High School
Snohomish 4 13 12 8 —37
Glacier Peak 7 3 18 15 —43
Snohomish—Katie Branvold 0, Maya DuChesne 3, Emily Preach 0, Samantha Beeman 0, Shaylee Harwood 10, Madison Pollock 16, Madeline Smith 6, Kyra Beckman 0, Ellie Flitsch 2. Glacier Peak—Paisley Johnson 3, Samantha Fatkin 18, Charlie Sevenants 0, Kayla Watkins 10, Natalie Rasmussen 6, Maya McFadden 6, Makayla Guerra 0, Nicole Jensen 0, Abbie Juozapaitis 0. Records—Snohomish 0-1 overall. Glacier Peak 2-0.
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