Defensive pressure helps Lynnwood girls put opponents away

Published 10:20 pm Monday, January 5, 2015

With a suffocating press, the strategy of the Lynnwood girls basketball team is to wear teams out then take advantage of that fatigue late in games.

So far, that strategy hasn’t come in to play this season .

The Royals have won their first nine games by no less than 17 points. Most have been all but decided by the end of the first quarter.

The Royals have outscored all but one of their opponents in the first quarter this season. Snohomish, the only team not to be outscored by the Royals, managed a 7-7 tie. Against Jackson in the season opener, and more recently against Meadowdale, the Royals pitched first-quarter shutouts.

“We have a very strong-willed team and they’re very competitive,” Lynnwood head coach Everett Edwards said. “We take a lot pride in our defense and we do want to get off to great starts. We want to win every quarter, but the first and third quarters are a little extra special in terms of being able to execute the game plan. The kids are just working and playing as hard as they can.”

Lynnwood’s first-quarter dominance paid off this past week when the Royals traveled to Lake Oswego, Oregon, for the Nike Interstate Shootout. The Royals faced four of the top teams in Oregon and won every game by at least 20 points en route to the championship.

“It couldn’t have gone any better,” Edwards said. “Except for the first game, every one of our players played. It’s exciting to think that we could compete like that with some of the top teams down in Oregon.”

In the championship game against South Salem, the Royals jumped to a 9-0 lead and never looked back, winning 59-38. All four teams the Royals faced were held to nine points or less in the opening stanza.

Without a doubt, the key to the Royals success early in games is their press. Their relentless pressure not only causes turnovers, but quickly tires opponents.

“So far, our kids have been working real hard and we’ve been able to keep our press up, which is a big deal in terms of being able to wear teams down with constant pressure the whole game,” Edwards said.

Lynnwood junior forward Jordyn Edwards, the daughter of Coach Edwards, said the Royals’ depth is a key to being able to stick with the press throughout games.

“It really helps knowing that if you’re tired, you can get a quick sub,” she said. “The whole team can play good defense and I think it just helps knowing that you can go really hard and then there’s somebody that will have your back — and then you can go right back in.”

Perhaps the most frightening thing for Lynnwood opponents is that despite winning every game so far this season by an average of 34.3 point, the best may be yet to come.

“I’m very humble when I say this, but we still haven’t played our best basketball yet,” Edwards said. “We’re still looking to play better basketball and there are still some things that we’re working on on the offensive end and with skill development and everything else, so it’s a constant grind regarding what it’s going to take.”

Despite the lopsided victories, Edwards still sees things his team needs to work on. Earlier in the season, the Royals beat Wilson, a top-five 3A team by 35 points. The game was never close, but Wilson was the only team to score 10 points or more against the Royals in every quarter so far this season. The Rams’ “success” helped Edwards pinpoint an area that needed to be addressed.

“We understand that we must make it a priority to rebound the basketball and we can’t allow teams to get multiple offensive rebounds,” he said. “That’s very challenging given our style of play at times and the type of defense that we’re playing, but we have a renewed focus on rebounding. That is the number-one priority for us. In that Wilson game, that was an area of concern. We’ve looked at that and we’re practicing it right now.”

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