Glacier Peak JV girls basketball team has won 101 straight games

SNOHOMISH — “Have fun = win.”

It’s the last thing Glacier Peak junior varsity coach Jon Rasmussen writes on his whiteboard before a game.

“It starts there. The main thing is to have fun,” Rasmussen said. “If you’re not having fun, that’s not good.

“We’re having a lot of fun.”

Glacier Peak has won 101 consecutive junior varsity games, a streak that spans four and a half seasons. The Grizzlies’ JV hasn’t lost a game since the 2010-11 season, and that success has helped prepare players for the varsity team, which is 9-2 this season and lost just seven games over the prior two seasons.

Glacier Peak head coach Brian Hill credits the JV team’s success with helping prepare players for varsity competition.

“It keeps building our program up. I think a lot of our success is because our other programs are so successful,” Hill said. “Even our C-team was on a big win streak also. I think they were up to 80 before they lost to Snohomish last year. Then they filter up to JV and JV filters up to varsity.”

Rasmussen, who is in his fourth year as the JV coach, took over a team that was used to winning. Since Glacier Peak began athletics in 2008, the girls junior varsity team has gone 143-7. According to Rasmussen, the last loss was at the buzzer and the loss before was the first game of the 2009-10 season.

Both coaches, and their players, are a bit surprised the streak has continued for so long.

“Odds are you’re going to lose a game here or there,” Rasmussen said. “… The ball should bounce wrong somewhere down the line and it hasn’t. You’ve got to have some luck in there too. It’s pretty crazy, though, when you start thinking of 100-and-some wins.”

Every current player on the Grizzlies’ varsity team has played on the JV at one time or another, making them all a part of the streak.

“Everyone’s played JV,” Rasmussen said. “Everyone’s been a part of this streak. The whole team — the whole program — is in on it. Sadie (Mensing) and Kianna (Garner) graduated last year and they were part of the first (20-0 season). It’s been there awhile so everyone has a little piece to the puzzle. Everyone’s part of this streak and that’s the cool thing.”

The players gave Rasmussen a shirt after the 100th win came against the Shorecrest JV on Dec. 18. According to Rasmussen, those players’ high basketball IQs have been key to the streak.

“These girls can run so many offenses it’s not even funny,” Rasmussen said. “It’s not normal for a JV team to be able to run multiple defenses, multiple offenses against a man or a zone. I treat them like a varsity team.”

The JV players go up against the Glacier Peak varsity squad regularly, sometimes even coming away with a win.

“It’s always really intense and competitive because we’re always doing our best to try to be at the same level as the varsity is,” said junior Kelsey Thomas, a post for the Glacier Peak JV. “We’re trying to compete with them. Even if we might not win everyday, it’s still a good practice for us because we have a pretty good varsity team. It’s really helpful because we know what kind of level they play on so we know what kind of level we need to play at to move on to the next level.”

“Because the JV is so competitive, they practice against the varsity so there’s some great battles in practice,” Hill said. “The varsity kids are competitive too. They don’t like to lose to them, which has happened on occasion. Being able to push each other really helps us be successful.”

Rasmussen came to Glacier Peak in 2008 after serving as the head coach of the Shorecrest girls team for four seasons. Prior to that, he was the head coach for the Lynnwood girls. When Rasmussen’s oldest daughter, former Glacier Peak sharpshooter Taylor Rasmussen was a freshman at GP, he resigned to go to the Grizzlies, where he served as a varsity assistant for four years before the JV coaching position opened up.

Jon Rasmussen teases Hill that his kids come to the varsity having never experienced a losing locker room.

“It’s a neat thing to be recognized for but it’s a strong program and we just keep feeding Brian with more talent,” Rasmussen said. “I kind of tease him. I say, ‘Kids have never lost and then I give them to you and they find out what a loss is.’”

The current JV players say there isn’t any additional pressure, but they are aware of the streak and want to keep it going.

“We try not to get too cocky about it or talk about it too much,” said junior JV guard Mackenzie Willms. “We use it as motivation. We don’t want to break the streak.”

“When we came onto the team our first year, to be on JV, it was really crazy because we didn’t want to lose,” Thomas added. “Now, we’re used to it but it’s still a really big motivator for the whole team. We’re more concentrated on us as a team and how we play, than our wins. I mean, we want to win every game, but we’re more concentrated on how we play.”

Last season, Rasmussen asked Willms, Thomas and his team what they thought the streak stood at.

The guesses were a little off.

“I had six or seven freshmen on the JV team and I asked them what they thought the record was,” Rasmussen said. “Twenty-seven games was their highest guess. I said, ‘Well it’s 72.’ And that was when they started last year. They were at 92 at the end of the year and now it’s over 100. I think the pressure has eased up a little — the 100 was coming down — but they take pride in it.”

Rasmussen isn’t sure how long the streak will continue, but he’s going to keep preparing his team to go out and win.

Hill is as excited as anyone to see how long Rasmussen and the Grizzlies’ junior varsity team can keep the wins coming.

“It’s pretty neat,” Hill said. “At the beginning, you don’t think of it. You keep playing games and then at the end of the season you’re undefeated and like, ‘That’s great!’ Then it happens and you think, ‘Two seasons in a row!’ Then three. It’s an incredible feat and it just shows you how good of kids we have coming through our feeder program.”

And, most importantly, have fun.

“We have kids out here that are on the JV that would play for a lot of varsity teams,” Rasmussen said. “That’s a great problem to have. … We’ll see how long we can keep it up. Just getting to 100 was a huge accomplishment.”