Snohomish boys basketball upsets Meadowdale

Published 11:54 pm Monday, January 5, 2026

SNOHOMISH — Hudson Smith did not have a good feeling when the ball left his hands.

With time winding down in the first half of Snohomish boys basketball’s home matchup against Meadowdale on Monday, the Snohomish senior had to heave up a prayer from half court. Like the vast majority of those last-second shots, Smith expected it to miss badly. Oh well. With the home team leading by seven, the only harm done would be to Smith’s shooting percentage.

In fact, that’s exactly why his brother, Grant Smith, passed up the ball, according to Hudson. But the older brother wanted the ball anyway, and as the shot got closer to the hoop, it looked much better than it felt out of his hands. The buzzer sounded, and the gym waited.

Swish.

Hudson raised both arms above his head as his teammates swarmed him and the student section went crazy behind him. Improbably, Snohomish would enter the half with a 27-17 lead.

“After I hit it, (Grant) was like, ‘Yeah, I didn’t want to shoot that. My percentage would have gone down,’” Hudson recalled after the game. “My percentage went up, so I’ll take it.”

It was only halftime, but despite facing a Meadowdale team that entered the night with just one loss on the season, that shot effectively sealed things in the eyes of the home team.

“After that shot, we knew we had it the rest of the game,” senior Luke Davis said. “I don’t think there was a question after that.”

The Panthers (7-6) held off several pushes from the Mavericks (9-2) to lock up a 57-43 victory, winning their third straight coming out of a four-game losing streak as they turn their season around.

It’s a confidence-builder for a team gaining momentum. Head coach Jeff Larson credited both Smith and Davis among the team at large for their hard work pulling the program above .500.

“They don’t make excuses or look for the easy way out,” Larson said. “Athletics is hard, and winning is hard. We demand and ask a lot of these guys, and they continue to rise to the challenge. So I’m not surprised.”

Hudson Smith led the way with 22 points, 10 rebounds and three steals. Junior Deyton Wheat had 15 points and eight rebounds, and Davis had eight points and nine boards for Snohomish.

Senior Noah Million led Meadowdale with 13 points, and sophomore Hasaan Motley had 11 points and four rebounds off the bench in an off-night for a Mavericks team that has already matched last year’s regular-season win total.

Coach Roger O’Neill credits the team’s leadership and overall shooting ability for the strong start this season, but he said that the compete-level needs to remain consistent if they want to keep getting results.

“Monday night in Snohomish, you can’t expect to come in here and not work your butt off to compete for a win,” O’Neill said. “And so we have been doing that all year. Tonight was a reminder that you have to do things right, and Snohomish did things right tonight, and we didn’t.”

With Meadowdale troubled by “top to bottom, probably the biggest team in Wesco South or North,” as O’Neill put it — Snohomish has four players in their regular rotation that are 6-foot-5 or taller — the Panthers jumped out to an 8-0 lead, easily finding their way inside for close-range shots.

Junior Grady Rohrich hit a 3-pointer to extend the lead to 11-1 with less than three minutes left in the quarter, and Meadowdale didn’t make their first field goal until there was 2:04 left, when Million got inside for a layup.

“We knew we had to come out quick,” Davis said. “They can shoot a lot of 3s, they can make a lot of 3s, and so keeping that in our back pocket, knowing that they’re going to come out and hit a couple, we knew we had to come out hard and fast.”

Snohomish carried a 15-5 lead into the second quarter and managed to keep its distance from the Mavericks. The Smith brothers teamed up on both ends of the court with around 5:25 left before the half, as Grant poked the ball loose for Hudson to grab for a turnover, and after he dished it back to Grant, Hudson got open down the court to receive the outlet pass and extend the lead to 19-9. The Panthers started to turn the ball over and miss their shots in the closing minutes before the break, but Meadowdale failed to capitalize enough times.

Million helped cut the deficit to seven by drawing a foul after securing an offensive rebound and making both free throws with 54.3 seconds left, but Hudson Smith’s half-court buzzer-beater restored the 10-point lead.

The Mavericks came out of halftime with intensity, but the Panthers matched it. With 4:07 left in the third quarter, Davis pulled down two offensive rebounds before getting fouled on a layup and hitting the following free throw for the ‘And-1,’ extending the lead to 34-22.

Wheat pushed the lead to 14 after grabbing a defensive rebound and sidestepping a Meadowdale defender looking to draw a charge on the following possession, but the Mavericks trimmed the deficit to seven entering the final quarter with a 3-pointer from Million and a couple buckets from Motley, who ended the run by finding senior Khalil Botley under the basket for a layup with five seconds left to make it 38-31.

“We knew they’d make a run. They’re too good a team not to,” Larson said. “Our challenge was to keep our composure, not get rattled and try to make plays. That’s why I’m really proud of our team. We handled their run and we were able to make a couple plays of our own.”

Grant Smith opened the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer, and the Panthers had little trouble breaking Meadowdale’s full-court press down the stretch. When the Mavericks resorted to fouling in the final minute, Snohomish maintained possession by dominating the offensive boards on missed free-throw attempts before getting back to the line, getting a few more points from the charity stripe en route to the 57-43 win.

“I just say, ‘Stack wins, stack days,’” Hudson Smith said. “We lost (four) in a row a week ago, and we just didn’t let it get to our heads and just kept playing the way we know how. Now we’ve won three in a row, so they can turn just like that.”