Lynnwood girls win, face top-seeded Bishop Blanchet next

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 1, 2017

TACOMA — The Lynnwood girls basketball team was No. 13 in the final Washington Interscholastic Activities Association RPI rankings, which were used to seed teams into the state tournament.

Even though the Royals finished the regular season with a 16-4 record and an undefeated mark in Wesco 3A play, they were forced to play a loser-out state regional game last weekend because they finished outside of the top eight in the RPI. After winning that contest, they moved on to the 3A Hardwood Classic and played another loser-out game, against second-seeded Gig Harbor on Wednesday at the Tacoma Dome.

Lynnwood certainly didn’t look like the 13th-best team in the state in its dominating 57-29 win, its 17th straight victory. The Royals’ coaches and players said they don’t feel like they’re the 13th best team in the state, either.

“We didn’t really talk about the RPI until the end of the season,” said Lynnwood guard Kaprice Boston, who posted eight points, seven assists, five rebounds and seven steals Wednesday. “We knew we were lower, so we wanted to prove that it was wrong. We didn’t really look into the numbers a lot, but we focused on winning games to climb up in the rankings.

“It is what it is. We used it as motivation, definitely. Maybe we shouldn’t have been ranked that low, and we showed that (Wednesday). We have something to prove.”

The Royals’ RPI ranking partially stems from the fact that the winning percentage of its opponents was just .501. Opponents’ winning percentage is 50 percent of the RPI formula.

“It’s the system we have, I guess. Maybe the formula needs to be tweaked,” Lynnwood coach Brent Hudson said. “We talked a little bit before the tournament about how we were overlooked a bit. There’s nothing else to do with the RPI. I told the girls that every team at the state tournament can play no matter what their RPI is.”

On paper, at least, the Royals (21-4) received a tough draw. After dispatching the No. 2 seed Wednesday, they’ll face the top seed, Bishop Blanchet, in Thursday’s quarterfinal round.

“We’ll assume that the RPI is right and approach it like we beat the No. 2 team, and now we face the best team,” Hudson said. “The good news is that this will be our second game here and their first, so they may have some jitters, and our experience might give us an edge.”

The Braves (23-1) are led by 6-foot forward Jadyn Bush, a Harvard commit.

“They’re huge,” Hudson said. “Their guards are consistent and steady. For us, the key will be if we can see how athletic their bigs are. We want to see what we can make them do in terms of getting out and running. We want to make them uncomfortable.”

Gig Harbor coach Megan Murray said the Lynnwood-Bishop Blanchet matchup should be a good one.

“Lynnwood is a great team,” she said. “They have a couple of different offensive weapons, and they like to run. Whoever plays them better be ready to keep up.”

“We’ll be ready for whatever we have to do to move on to better things,” Boston said. “The key for us will be our defense. If we can stop the other teams’ key players, we’ll be OK. Our offense will be there. Defense wins games for us.”

The Royals’ defense won Wednesday’s game. They forced 24 turnovers, including 15 steals, and held Gig Harbor to 26-percent shooting from the field.

“We wanted it so bad,” Boston said. “We knew our RPI wasn’t the highest, and we wanted to prove that we can beat teams with the top RPI. We were mentally focused and ready to play.”

Kelsey Rogers led Lynnwood with 20 points, and teammate Valerie Bell added 10.