Edmonds-Woodway girls rally to beat Eastlake

Published 10:49 pm Tuesday, February 22, 2011

SAMMAMISH — The Edmonds-Woodway girls basketball team is taking the scenic route to the 4A state tournament.

The Warriors, who similarly qualified through the loser’s bracket last season, rode a furious fourth-quarter comeback to capture a 58-44 win over host Eastlake in the 4A Wesco-Kingco play-in game. The victory secured their second straight berth in the state tournament, which begins Friday at 4 p.m. with a regional first-round matchup against defending champion Auburn Riverside at Jackson High School.

The game will be a rematch. The Warriors lost a state tournament first-round game to Auburn Riverside last season and dropped a close overtime contest to the same team early this season during a tournament in Oregon,

On Tuesday, Edmonds-Woodway trailed by as many as 11 points against Eastlake, the Kingco No. 3 seed, and started the fourth quarter down by nine. But the Warriors turned up their intensity in those final 8 minutes, outscoring the Wolves 29-6.

Senior forward Angela Woods led the Warriors (22-4 overall) with 18 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter, while senior center Sydney Donaldson chipped in 10 points (eight in the fourth). E-W senior center Ashley Albertson added 11 points and senior point guard Madeline Kasper battled foul trouble but still picked up 10 points for the Warriors, whose defense finally figured out how to restrain Eastlake’s attack.

“We just changed defenses in the fourth, that’s all it was,” said Edmonds-Woodway head coach Duane Hodges, who has guided the Warriors to back-to-back state tournaments since taking over prior to last season. “I didn’t think we could zone these guys (Eastlake) because they’ve only shot 12,000 shots here (in their home gym), but I went out on a limb because nothing else was stopping them.”

Eastlake junior forward Kendra Morrison, who entered the game averaging 16 points per game, finished with 12 to lead the Wolves (21-4).

“We ran our zone against Marysville last game the whole game and we’ve been running that a lot and we didn’t want to rely on it this game,” said Donaldson, a Western Washington University signee. “We dropped back into it (in the fourth quarter) and ran it really intense, got a bunch of steals and that helped create some better offense for us, so it worked out.”

Edmonds-Woodway climbed back into the lead with the help of an 11-1 run opening the fourth quarter. Donaldson converted a turnaround scoop in the lane to give the Warriors the lead, 40-39, with 4 minutes, 38 seconds remaining in the game.

Edmonds-Woodway jumped out to a 16-6 advantage early in the second quarter, but a strong 18-4 Eastlake run to end the quarter put the Wolves up 28-22 at halftime. The Warriors battled to stay in the game as Eastlake maintained its lead through the entire third quarter.

“We’re not usually the team to get behind, but we’re also the team that has a lot of heart and we just came out and showed that tonight,” said Albertson, who entered the matchup averaging 8.5 points per game.

Auburn Riverside presents a unique opponent for the Warriors, who placed fifth at the state tournament last season and returned all five starting players.

The defending 4A champion Ravens are 21-4 overall, losing just twice to in-state competition, and are led by 6-0 senior forward and Boston College commit Kat Cooper, who averages nearly 20 points per game.

Cooper scored 23 against E-W in a 61-54 overtime win in early December and the Warriors have no excuse to be unprepared for the Ravens come Friday.

“We don’t have to look very far to get game film (on Auburn Riverside),” Hodges said.

“I think we’re really excited,” Donaldson said. “We’re a completely different team from (the last game) and they’re playing a lot of really good basketball right now. It’ll be a really good game, but we’ve got nothing to lose so we’re going to go all out.”

At Eastlake H.S.

Edmonds-Woodway 14 8 7 29 — 58

Eastlake 6 22 10 6 — 44

Edmonds-Woodway — Kasper 10, Eck 1, Nash 0, Kenney 8, Olajoyegbe 0, Albertson 11, Donaldson 10, Woods 18. Eastlake — Naluai 3, McCabe 7, Morrison 12, Zennan 2, Carlson 5, Boe 3, K. Ainslie 6, Files 6. 3-point goals — Kenney 2, Woods 2, McCabe 1, Morrison 1, Carlson 1, Boe 1. Records — Edmonds-Woodway 22-4 overall. Eastlake 21-4.