A love for the game inspires Warriors’ Woods

Published 11:36 pm Monday, March 22, 2010

Angela Woods can thank her sister, Colleen, for inadvertently nudging her toward basketball.

After spending hours in the gym watching her big sister play, Woods decided to pick up the sport around the age of 9 and immediately fell in love.

Roughly eight years later, Woods helped lead the Edmonds-Woodway High School girls basketball team to its first state appearance in nearly two decades and a hard-earned fifth-place trophy.

For her prominent role in that accomplishment the 5-foot-10 junior forward is The Herald’s 2010 All-Area Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

What started as a just-for-fun game quickly turned into a passion for Woods. Coaches quickly recognized her talent and she began playing select basketball just a year after taking up the sport. As a freshman at Shoreline Christian High School, Woods was part of a team that placed fifth at the 2008 Class 2B state tournament.

After Woods moved and transferred to Edmonds-Woodway for her sophomore year, the Warriors advanced as far as the Class 4A District 1 playoffs but fell short of the state tournament. Woods, however, was named to the All-Wesco South first team.

This year, the Warriors — without a senior on their roster — continued to improve, claiming the Wesco South title and the Northwest District’s No. 3 seed in the state tournament, their first state berth in 17 years.

“Going to state this year is going to stick with me forever,” Woods said. “The girls that I went with are my best friends. We had a really good time together, getting to know each other better, and that whole experience.”

After losing in the first round to the eventual state champion, Auburn Riverside, the Warriors narrowly beat Federal Way and Lewis &Clark to advance to a trophy game against Moses Lake. With a 44-38 victory, Edmonds-Woodway clinched fifth place.

“At the end of the game when it was tight and we were up, she knew the other team was going to foul and she wanted the ball because she thought she could knock down free throws,” Edmonds-Woodway coach Duane Hodges said of Woods, who shot 78 percent from the foul line during the season and made three foul shots in the final two minutes to hold off Moses Lake.

Woods could be counted on to put up strong offensive numbers and led the Warriors in total points (411), scoring average (15.2) and high game (25). She also averaged four rebounds, two assists and two steals per contest.

One of Woods’ greatest strengths was her 3-point shooting. She averaged just over two 3-pointers per game and shot 40 percent from beyond the arc.

“She possesses an extraordinary touch from the outside and has about as much range as anybody in the state, yet takes little time to get her shot off,” Hodges said. “On many occasions, opposing coaches have smiled at me and shook their heads after witnessing Angela’s range.”

Woods, whose long-term goal is to play college basketball, hopes next season to help the Warriors improve on this year’s fifth-place showing.

“We have a goal that we don’t want to lose next year,” she said. “We just want to push ourselves to get ready for state.”