Edmonds-Woodway meets goal, finishes 7th
Published 11:20 pm Saturday, March 1, 2008
TACOMA—Their state tournament finished, the Warriors could still smile Saturday afternoon despite ending their season with a loss.
Sure Edmonds-Woodway had just been beaten 62-55 by Lincoln in the game to decide fourth and seventh places in the Class 4A State Tournament, but just getting to the final day of the tournament was quite an accomplishment for the Warriors.
Before this season, Edmonds-Woodway had never made it to the final day of state to secure a top-eight finish, and prior to its merger with Woodway, neither had Edmonds. Woodway High School hadn’t placed since finishing sixth, third and sixth from 1987-1989.
“We had a great season and a great state tournament going 2-2,” said senior guard James Conti. “Our goal this season was to play on Saturday, but I wish we would have gotten a win.”
Warriors coach Gail Pintler joked that he made a mistake when he gave his team a preseason goal of playing on the last day at state.
“We said our goal was to play on Saturday,” he said. “I should have changed our mantra to ‘Win on Saturday.’”
The Warriors (21-6) and Abes (25-5) played a mostly even first half, but Edmonds-Woodway suffered a huge loss when leading scorer Connor Donaldson went down with an injured left knee. Donaldson, who came into the tournament averaging 15 points per game, missed several games earlier this season with an injury to his right knee.
“It was tough when Donaldson went down,” said Conti, who finished with 12 points, four assists and three steals. “We try to run a lot of things through Connor, because he’s not only our big man, but one of our best outside shooters. So it kind of takes the threat away from the outside. That was a big loss right there.”
The loss of the 6-foot-6 Donaldson started catching up with Edmonds-Woodway in the second half, and Lincoln took advantage. With the Warriors struggling to score—they scored just eight points in the third quarter—Lincoln seized control of the game with a 12-0 third-quarter run.
“That’s kind of typical of how we play,” said 25-year-old first-year Lincoln coach Aubrey Shelton, who won a state title as a player at Lincoln in 2001.
Shelton, whose younger brother Kaleb is a senior center on the team, acknowledged that the loss of Donaldson made a difference in the game.
“That’s tough,” he said. “You don’t want to win when a guys goes down like that.”
And while Saturday didn’t provide quite the finish the Warriors had hoped for, it was still a good four-day run, Pintler said.
“This is maybe the most talented group of teams that I’ve seen at a tournament from top to bottom, and to walk away with hardware, you’ve got to really feel good,” said Pintler, whose team beat Kentridge in the first round, lost to top-ranked Ferris in the quarterfinals, and beat Foss on Friday to stay alive. “I mean Garfield went home, Kentridge went home, those are awesome teams, so yeah, we’ve got to feel really good about that.”
Pintler, who just finished his second season coaching the Warriors, wasn’t sure if Saturday’s game will be his last.
“I haven’t decided whether I’m coming back or not, that will be done later on,” he said. “I actually didn’t have plans to coach this year. I was going to be the interim coach for one year and the parents asked, so I did it for two. I could do it for three, I don’t know yet, we’ll see. And I’m ready to be a snowbird and go down to spring training and all of those kinds of things. I’ll probably decide in a month or so, unless they decide for me and tell me I’m not coming back.”
At the Tacoma Dome
Lincoln17131616—62
Ed.-Woodway179821—55
Lincoln—Rogers 3, Lexing 12, Russell, Wright, Milner 7, Smith 15, Shelton 6, Dansby 1, Cranshaw 10, Jackson 4, Okeze 2, Faga’autau 2. Edmonds Woodway—Ortiz 9, Wilson 1, McCartney 4, Conti 12, Wafer 2, Reilly 2, Enquist 5, Laue 14, Heard, Donaldson 4, Polovina, Willcock 2. 3-point goals Lincoln—Lexing 1, Smith 2. Edmonds Woodway—Conti 1.
