Monroe overcomes slow start to beat Lake Stevens

Published 11:31 pm Friday, January 22, 2010

LAKE STEVENS — Most of the first quarter was hide-your-eyes awful for the Monroe girls basketball team on Friday night.

Fortunately for the Bearcats, there were three more quarters to play.

After going scoreless for all but the last 18 seconds of the opening period — Monroe missed its first 17 shots from the field and had zero points until Sam DeBell dropped in a shot from left of the key — the Bearcats managed a steady comeback to overtake and then hold off Lake Stevens in the frantic final minutes of a 50-45 victory.

The winning shot was a long, arching 3-pointer by Monroe’s Jordyn Robertson from left of the key and from well behind the 3-point stripe. The shot struck the backboard and banked through the net cleanly to give the Bearcats a 48-45 lead with 28 seconds to play.

Moments later, Lake Stevens’ Stephanie Schumacher missed a 3-point try and Monroe’s Suzanna Ohlsen was fouled after the rebound. Her two free throws with eight seconds on the clock sealed the outcome.

“Wins like this, you can build on,” said Monroe head coach Rodney Walker. “I’m not going to say it was the prettiest game, but in spots we played really well.”

Despite Monroe’s poor shooting start — shot after shot bounced off the rim, and some attempts missed the iron altogether — the early 9-0 deficit could have been worse. And that’s something both head coaches acknowledged.

“We were only down nine,” Walker said.

“The first quarter, I thought we should’ve been up maybe more,” said Lake Stevens’ Randall Edens.

Once the Bearcats got untracked, they quickly found their shooting touch. Monroe scored eight points in the first two minutes of the second period and closed to 21-18 late in the period, though Lake Stevens scored a field goal in the final seconds for a 23-18 edge at halftime.

Monroe took its first lead midway through the third quarter on a basket by Sara Murphy from the left baseline. The score see-sawed briefly and then the Bearcats pulled away, pushing their margin to 10 points early in the fourth quarter.

After the dismal first period, “we got a couple of stops, scored some baskets, and then we kept getting baskets,” Walker said. “We scratched and clawed and got a 10-point lead. But then we had to fight like heck to keep it.”

Indeed, despite a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit, the Vikings weren’t done. They held Monroe scoreless for nearly six minutes, and two back-to-back baskets — a fastbreak layin by Schumacher, and a steal and layin by Brooke Pahukoa — made the score 45-45 with 57 seconds remaining.

The Bearcats ran the shot clock down, and then Robertson banked in her fifth 3-pointer of the game for a three-point margin.

“I didn’t think (3-point bank shots) were supposed to count,” Edens said with a wry smile.

The outcome was disappointing, he added, because “we let one slip away.” Even though Lake Stevens was good defensively in the fourth quarter, the Vikings also went scoreless in a four-minute stretch, “and that’s the most frustrating part,” he said.

“During every timeout, we were calling something specific (offensively),” Edens said. “But for whatever reason, the girls were kind of tossing the ball around instead of being solid with it. These are the kinds of (close) games we’re going to see (later in the season), and in late-game situations we have to be better than that.”

At Lake Stevens H.S.

Monroe2162012—50

Lake Stevens9141012—45

Monroe — Ohlsen 11, DeBell 4, Alexander 7, Robertson 19, Clark 5, Murphy 2, Wilkins 2. Lake Stevens — Goddard 2, Peterson 2, Bostwick 6, Warbis 7, Corinne Burke 3, Schumacher 15, Molstre 2, Brooke Pahukoa 8. 3-point goals — Robertson 5, Clark 1, Schumacher 1. Records — Monroe 9-2 league, 12-3 overall. Lake Stevens 7-4 league, 10-5 overall.