STANWOOD — For three quarters Tuesday night, Stanwood’s offense lurched along in fits and starts.
“We were getting decent shots. We were just not consistently putting shots in back-to-back,” Stanwood head coach Dennis Kloke.
When the Spartans finally tuned up their offensive rhythm, they turned a one-point deficit and back-and-forth battle with Edmonds-Woodway into a lopsided finish, defeating the Warriors 46-36 in a Class 4A girls District 1 loser-out game.
“The shots started to go in,” Kloke said. “It’s as simple as that.”
With the victory, the Spartans advance to play Arlington at 6 p.m. on Friday night in another loser-out game. The winner of that game advances to play the third-place team out of Kingco for a berth in the state regionals.
The Spartans jumped out to an early 10-3 lead against the Warriors, which seemed like quite a bit cosnidering the way the two offenses were playing. But Madeline Kasper’s 3-pointer in the final seconds of the first quarter cut Stanwood’s lead to just four.
In the second period, the Spartans threatened to pull away again building a 16-8 lead. Once again the Warriors made a late-quarter push to keep it close. Kasper made one free throw and her sister, Natalie, hit two to cut the Warriors’ deficit to five, 16-11, as the teams headed into the locker room for halftime.
In the third quarter, Madeline Kasper helped her team take its first lead of the game at 19-18 with her second 3-pointer. She scored five straight points for E-W at the end of the period to help the Warriors keep the lead, 25-24.
“She’s really an unusual girl,” Edmonds-Woodway coach Duane Hodges said of his senior guard. “She is really a gentle and fun-loving girl during the dead ball. But when it’s a live ball, she is about as fierce of a competitor as you can get.”
Even with Kasper, the Warriors couldn’t negate the Spartans’ fourth-quarter offensive outburst. Stanwood opened the quarter on an 11-0 run and kept surging, turning a one-point deficit into a 16-point advantage.
Rachel Swartz scored 14 points to lead the way for the Spartans. Paisley Heckman added in 10.
“I’m very, very pleased,” Kloke said about Swartz’s play. “She is an athlete that really wants to win and sometimes she takes on too much of the responsibility. That is good and bad at the same time. And she got herself under control tonight and she did exactly what we wanted her to do.”
With the outcome no longer in doubt, Hodges was able to take out Madeline Kasper in the game’s final seconds for a chance to be recognized for her career by the Warriors fans who had made the trip to Stanwood. She finished with 17 points.
“I had to fight back tears,” Hodges said of seeing Kasper come off the court for the last time. “I wanted people to recognize what she has done. The number of games she has won as a starter at Edmonds-Woodway has been like 103 games. That’s a lot of games.”
In a classy move, Kloke also acknowledged Kasper with an embrace in the handshake line after the game.
“I have only been able to watch her when we have played them or when I was scouting them,” Kloke said. “I have noticed her body language on and off the court and she must be a fabulous young lady. And she has had a great career. Being the only senior and she had little tears in her eyes and I just felt for her.
“I just told her … that I really appreciated how hard she has played her entire basketball career. I just wanted to acknowledge that to her.”
At Stanwood H.S.
Edmonds-Woodway651411—36
Stanwood106822—46
Edmonds-Woodway-M. Kasper 17, Eck 5, N. Kasper 6, Nealey 0, Vogel 0, Jackson 6, Olajoyegbe 2, Bakken 0, Fyfe 0. Stanwood-Kelleigh 5, Lucero 9, Bingham 0, Ta. Murphy 4, Borseth 4, Swartz 14, Heckman 10, Tr. Murphy 0. 3-point goals-M. Kasper 4, Jackson 1, Kelleigh 1, Borseth 1. Records- Edmonds-Woodway 11-12, Stanwood 21-2.
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Read his live blogs at www.heraldnet.com/prepzone, follow him on twitter @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
