Hatch leads Glacier Peak boys to 58-44 win over Snohomish

Published 10:31 pm Tuesday, December 2, 2014

SNOHOMISH — Glacier Peak junior Zach Hatch made certain his first varsity boys basketball game was a night to remember.

After spending his sophomore year on junior varsity, Hatch debuted on varsity on Tuesday, scoring 29 points and making eight 3s to lead Glacier Peak to a 58-44 non-conference win over cross-district rival Snohomish.

“Last year, I didn’t really play a lot on JV and this year I just came out and tried to do the best I could and help my team out the best I could,” Hatch said.

Grizzlies head coach Brian Hunter expects Hatch will make an impact on the team after working hard in the offseason, but even he was surprised with Hatch’s initial effort.

“He had a good offseason, so we kind of had some ideas, a little bit, that he could do some things for us,” Hunter said. “I think he probably exceeded it a little bit tonight from what we were thinking about. He can shoot the basketball. We’ve got a few kids that can shoot it. He just shot most of them tonight.”

Snohomish made its first shot of the game — a 3-pointer — to take a 3-0 lead. After that, it was all Glacier Peak. The Grizzlies answered the Panthers’ opening bucket with a 14-0 run to take control and led 21-7 at the end of the first quarter.

“The easiest way to score is in transition,” Hunter said. “The thing that I liked about that little stretch we had was, everybody was involved.”

Hatch finished the first quarter with eight points and two 3s. He picked up right where he left off in the second quarter.

Snohomish started the quarter off on a 6-0 run to get to within eight, but Glacier Peak answered back with the long ball. Hatch made two in a row from 3-point range and senior Jacob Argue added another to extend the lead back to 30-13.

Snohomish finished the quarter with a 10-3 run to cut the deficit to 33-23 at halftime.

Snohomish’s only player who played significant minutes on varsity last season was senior Collin Kane. The 6-foot-9 center is one of the reasons the Wesco 4A coaches picked the Panthers to win the league championship this season, but Kane struggled in Tuesday’s opener, finishing with nine points and taking just six shots.

“He’s got to get way more (shots) than that,” Snohomish head coach Len Bone said. “They did a good job limiting his shots. Part of it was guys not being able to find him or complete passes that we threw to him — 21 turnovers was a bad number.”

The Panthers did a better job on Hatch in the third quarter, limiting him to just one 3, but he came alive again late in the fourth quarter with two 3s that all but clinched the game for the Grizzlies.

“We knew he was shooting well and we tried to talk about being aware of him, but we didn’t change our defenses up,” Bone said. “They were finding him and he was coming through.”

Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.

At Glacier Peak H.S.

Snohomish 7 16 11 10 — 44

Glacier Peak 21 12 11 14 — 58

Snohomish–Will Layton 0, Mitch Morris, 10, Kobe McDaniel 13, Kole Bride 2, Andrew Kane 0, Peyton Plucker 0, Danny McGregor 6, Jake Perry 2, Collin Kane 9, Seth Cavin 2. Glacier Peak–Zach Hatch 29, Logan Preece 0, Brady Southard 9, Grant Peltier 2, Justin Guffey 6, Jacob Argue 10, Jacob Middendorf 2, Austin Petz 0, Seiver Southard 0, Scott Wilson 0, Brendan Tetrault 0, Justin Purcell 0. 3-point goals–Morris 2, McDaniel 4, Hatch 8, Argue 1. Records–Snohomish 0-1, Glacier Peak 1-0.