Stanwood girls stay perfect; Edmonds-Woodway loses star in loss
Published 10:00 pm Wednesday, January 4, 2017
STANWOOD — Missy Peterson limped off the court 50 seconds into the first quarter of Wednesday’s girls basketball game between Edmonds-Woodway and host Stanwood. Suffering from a foot injury, Peterson, the Warriors’ star guard, didn’t return to the contest.
The Spartans took advantage, crushing Edmonds-Woodway 67-36. At the end of the game, two key talking points emerged: One, Peterson’s health and the effect her absence might have on the Warriors’ season; and two, Stanwood’s potential as a state tournament contender.
Peterson, a returning all-Wesco 3A selection and Long Beach State University commit, has been dealing with an injured foot all season, but had managed to play through it until Wednesday. Edmonds-Woodway coach Jon Rasmussen doesn’t know the exact nature of the injury or when she’ll return.
“She was devastated,” Rasmussen said. “She’s a total team player. As bad as this hurts us, it hurts her more. She’s a great player. She competes and shows a lot of heart. It’s a very big deal (to lose her). We were kind of shell-shocked.”
The Warriors entered the game with an 8-2 overall record (2-0 Wesco 3A), so if they can get Peterson back soon, they’ll probably factor into postseason play. But Rasmussen knows he’ll have to come up with an alternative plan in case she can’t return.
“We’ll sit down and look at personnel and adjust,” he said. “Everyone else will have to step up. We’ll be OK. The problem is we’re going through the toughest part of our schedule right now, so this couldn’t have come at a worse time for us. We’ll see how we deal with adversity.”
On the other side of the court, Stanwood (11-0, 3-0) is showing absolutely no signs of slowing down. The Spartans, ranked third in the latest Tacoma News Tribune state 3A poll, have a lot of the necessary ingredients to make a deep postseason push, namely an aggressive, opportunistic defense and a balanced offense. (Four Stanwood players entered Wednesday’s game averaging more than 10 points, and a fifth was at 9.4.)
“If one person is not having the best game, it’s no big deal because somebody else can step up and do well,” said Spartans post Kaitlin Larson, who scored 15 points Wednesday.
Stanwood’s coach, Dennis Kloke, knew before the season started that his team was capable of putting together a campaign like this.
“This is exactly what I expected,” he said. “I knew it after we played in summer tournaments at Snohomish and Edmonds. We had just one senior and a bunch of juniors, but at that point the girls said, ‘We can do this. Not next year. This year.’ I’m not shocked. The expectations were there, and the girls knew it.”
The Spartans finished one win shy of a state berth last season, and don’t want that to happen again this year.
“Last year we were so close (to state), and we just really looked forward to playing together (this season),” Larson said. “I don’t know if we anticipated (this kind of success) or not, but we are playing well together. It doesn’t matter what our record is or what (our opponent’s) record is; we want to keep playing our game.”
Ashley Alter led Stanwood with 20 points. Adrienne Poling scored 11 points for Edmonds-Woodway.
