Lynnwood girls beat Oaks Christian 73-50 at California tourney

Published 5:55 pm Tuesday, December 29, 2015

LIVERMORE, Calif. — A 10-point lead by the Lynnwood girls basketball team feels like an insurmountable deficit.

So a 21-point halftime lead is probably near impossible for a team to overcome.

The Royals jumped out to a 34-13 lead at halftime and built on it in the second half, defeating Oaks Christian 73-50 in a consolation game at the West Coast Jamboree at Las Positas College Tuesday afternoon.

Tournament directors placed Lynnwood in the consolation bracket after the Royals’ opening-round victory over Sacred Heart Cathedral (Calif.) on Monday because of a scheduling conflict that would preclude Lynnwood from playing in Wednesday night’s championship game should it qualify.

Although they are 2-0 in California, the Royals will play Salesian College Prep (Calif.) in the Platinum Division consolation championship at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, a start time that will better accommodate Lynnwood’s transportation plans than the 7:30 p.m. championship game tip.

“We had a real good first half,” said Royals coach Everett Edwards. “I think we had a balanced attack offensively. We only gave up 13 points in the first half and in the second half we kind of relaxed. This one kid kind of went off on us.”

That one kid was Oaks Christian senior Katie Campbell, who averages 18.6 points per game. The 5-foot-10 Washington State commit had a game-high 27 points for the Lions in the contest, with the bulk of them coming on 3-pointers in the third quarter.

“We had a good start defensively. The second half the Campbell kid got hot,” Edwards said. “She was knocking them down. She hit 7 deep, deep, deep 3-pointers.”

Oaks Christian (6-4) lost to another Washington team on Dec. 22, when the Lions fell 44-39 to Bellevue at the Nike Tournament of Champions in Arizona.

Bellevue and Lynnwood, the defending Washington 3A state champion, are expected to contend for this year’s state title.

“They started off playing man-to-man against us and we really took advantage of them,” Edwards said. “They ended up going to a zone to slow us down. … They’re a very good offensive team and have very good guard play. Thank gosh we had a 20-point lead in the second half because they came at us.”

Mikayla Pivec led Lynnwood (8-0 overall) with 20 points and fellow post Kelsey Rogers added 18 as the Royals worked the ball inside and built an early lead.

Jordyn Edwards netted 12 points and junior Kaprice Boston continued her strong start to the season for Lynnwood with 15 points.

“Kaprice Boston has been playing good basketball for us on both ends of the court and doing a great job in transition,” said Edwards. “The whole goal is looking to face some new teams and new competition. “Each one of the teams we played is a top team in their area. No matter who we play tomorrow they’re another good team as well. We’ve been facing a little bit of adversity but we’ve been stepping up and meeting the challenge.”

At Las Positas College

Lynnwood 17 17 24 15 —73

Oaks Chrisian 8 5 22 15 —50

Lynnwood—Abigail Yemane 2, Reilly Walsh 3, Rachel Walsh 3, Jordyn Edwards 12, Mikayla Pivec 20, Kelsey Rogers 18, Kaprice Boston 15, Taylor Fahey 0, Abby Douglas 0, Kia Crawford 0. Oaks Christian—D’uan Jackson 3, Katie Campbell 27, Roxy Barahman 4, Jalise McCaskill 1, Ashley Massell 2, Sydney Boyer 13. Records—Lynnwood 8-0 overall. Oaks Christian 6-4.