EVERETT — The Archbishop Thomas Murphy girls basketball team went cold from the field in the third quarter and Mount Baker took full advantage of the Wildcats’ shooting woes.
The Mountaineers outscored Archbishop Murphy 21-7 and turned what was a seven-point halftime deficit into a seven-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Mount Baker kept the pressure on in the fourth quarter and defeated the Wildcats 65-56 in a first-round Northwest District 2A tournament game Tuesday night at Archbishop Murphy High School.
“The shots that were going in the first half didn’t go in the second,” said Wildcats coach Bill Kelley. “That was the main thing. Baker played with a lot of energy. I give them a lot of credit.”
After a relatively even first quarter in which Mount Baker took a 17-16 lead, the momentum appeared to shift to Archbishop Murphy in the second quarter. A 13-4 run enabled the Wildcats to take a 29-21 lead with about three minutes remaining in the period.
Mount Baker trimmed the lead to 35-28 at halftime. In the second quarter, Archbishop Murphy’s points came from a variety of sources.
Junior Lauren Lasswell scored seven points, while junior forward Ashley Reinig also had seven points. Sophomore guard Krista Eknes connected on one of her five 3-point shots and junior center Lisa Coate added a pair of free throws.
The Wildcats’ offensive efficiency appeared to disappear as Archbishop Murphy (18-3 overall) could only muster two points in the first 5:17 of the third quarter.
“We came out and got very good looks to start the second half,” Kelley said.
But some shots that didn’t fall seemed to affect the Wildcats’ confidence. A lead soon turned into a deficit.
“They came out in the press,” Kelley added. “They didn’t get a lot of turnovers … but I think we were a little bit out of synch, even though we rehearsed for it. Some of the kids were a little out of position.”
The Mountaineers (13-8) also appeared to win the battle of the boards, collecting key rebounds that led to putbacks.
Crashing the boards will be an emphasis for the Wildcats.
“I think especially on free throws we didn’t block out very well,” Kelley said. “We can do better than that. We need to do better on that.”
Coate finished with a team-high 18 points. Eknes added 14 and Reinig had 13.
Mount Baker’s Stephani Kier led all scores with 23 points. Teammate Tiffany Tyler had 14 points.
In a preseason matchup earlier in the season, Archbishop Murphy defeated Mount Baker 53-46.
“(We) knew Baker was a really strong team,” Kelley said. “Baker is a really streaky team as we saw tonight. You never know what they’ll do. They can look not very good and they can look very good.”
The first-round loss means that Archbishop Murphy will need to win three games in order to advance to the state tournament.
“It’s one loss,” Kelley told his players. “We’ve got to win three games to get to state. We’ve won 18. Three shouldn’t seem like that overwhelming of a task.”
Archbishop Murphy faced Cascade Conference rival Sultan in a loser-out game Thursday night, the results of which were not available for this edition of the Enterprise.
“It’s very doable,” Kelley said of the team’s goal of advancing to state. “We’ve got a good chance of getting to state. That’s our goal.”
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