Edmonds-Woodway boys clinch second straight Wesco South title

Published 11:37 pm Wednesday, February 4, 2026

EDMONDS — Edmonds-Woodway boys basketball finally felt like things were starting to click.

After a slow start against Shorewood at home on Wednesday, during which neither team scored until near the midway point of the first quarter, Edmonds-Woodway pulled ahead 22-15 on a corner 3 from junior Grant Williams to complete a 9-0 run with 5:08 left in the first half. However, with the league title on the line, Shorewood would not go down without a fight, ultimately trimming the deficit to 26-21 entering halftime.

After losing by just one point in their previous matchup on Jan. 14 (55-54), Edmonds-Woodway knew it would need to create an even bigger lead in the third.

“Our whole talk after (we lost to them) was get them down enough where they know they’re not going to come back,” senior William Alseth said. “And I feel like we definitely tried to do that.”

Senior DJ Karl scored Edmonds-Woodway’s first four points of the half before Alseth pulled down a rebound and connected with senior Dre Simonsen on a long outlet pass to jump ahead 32-23 just 1:28 in. Unlike the previous quarter, Edmonds-Woodway stayed on the gas, extending their lead to 43-27 on a 17-6 run in the first six minutes of the second half. Shorewood managed to push back again, but the lead proved too big to overcome.

With a 55-48 victory, the Warriors (19-2, 11-1 league) clinched back-to-back Wesco 3A/2A South titles, breaking the tie atop the table with the Stormrays (15-6, 10-2 league). Alseth led the way with 16 points and 10 rebounds, while Simonsen (12 points) and Karl (seven points, six rebounds) were among the top contributors on both ends among a strong all-around effort from the starting five.

Edmonds-Woodway coach Tyler Geving sets benchmarks of producing under 10 turnovers, under 40 percent shooting allowed and more rebounds than the opponent for each game. He was much more satisfied with the results against Shorewood the second time around.

“We didn’t do any of them (in the Jan. 14 loss). We did two of the three tonight,” Geving said. “So if you do two of the three — if you do all three — you’re really going to win. So I thought we rebounded a lot better, and I thought we just defended a lot better.”

Sophomore Tyler Marlow led the Stormrays with a game-high 17 points, while also grabbing four steals. Junior Thomas Moles (14 points) and senior Jaden Marlow (12 points, 11 rebounds) also reached double figures. Despite trimming down a 16-point second-half deficit into a seven-point loss, Shorewood squandered valuable points at the foul line, shooting just 3-for-11 in the second half.

“In the beginning of the game, I thought we had some easy buckets we just missed early on,” Stormrays coach Joey Petschl said. “And I think we went, I don’t know, (3-for-11) from the free throw line to end the game, and we are losing by seven points. We got to make those against good teams, but we’ll get better from this. We’ll get better from this, no doubt.”

Both teams missed easy shots to start the game off, as it took 3:23 for either team to break the scoring, with Moles grabbing an offensive rebound in the paint and drawing an ‘And-1’ to give Shorewood an early 3-0 lead. Tyler Marlow pushed it to 4-0 with a free throw moments later, but Williams finally put the Warriors on the board with a layup approaching the 4:00 mark.

Given the stakes of the game and the atmosphere of a packed gym on senior night, Geving felt that both teams battled some nerves to start things off, but things quickly picked up as the two sides started to make their shots and combine for 26 points in the final 4:37 of the frame.

The Stormrays took an 11-6 lead on a 3-pointer from junior Yuto Allison, but Edmonds-Woodway sophomore Shayaan Shah responded with a 3 of his own before Alseth closed out the quarter with four straight points to tie it 13-13.

“I’d say we did a good job of not letting that get in our heads a ton,” Alseth said. “We kept getting to the hoop. We were getting there, we just weren’t finishing.”

The Warriors carried that momentum into the second quarter to go up 22-15 on a 9-0 run, but Shorewood quickly put it back within one possession coming out of the timeout with a putback layup from Jaden Marlow followed by a spinning shot by Moles under the basket to cut it to 22-19 with around four minutes left before the break.

Knowing they needed to pull ahead for good in the third, Karl sparked Edmonds-Woodway’s 17-6 third-quarter run with a layup through contact and a drive in transition before senior Julian Gray connected with Alseth on back-to-back possessions. Gray found Alseth inside for a layup, then kicked out to him for 3 to make it 39-25 midway through the frame. Simonsen hit a corner 3 with two minutes left in the quarter to give the Warriors their largest lead of the game, 43-27.

“I think we were able to push the ball ahead more,” Karl said. “We got a lot of fast break points, and blew the game out for us.”

Before Edmonds-Woodway could lock things up, Tyler Marlow went on a 7-0 solo run in the final minutes of the third, finding openings under the basket and generating a couple turnovers to create more points as the Stormrays entered the fourth trailing 43-34.

The two teams traded shots down the stretch, with Shorewood whittling the lead down to 49-44, but a pair of Warriors offensive rebounds effectively iced the game. Alseth secured possession off the rim right before the shot clock expired, allowing Edmonds-Woodway to burn more time off before Karl was sent to the line with 1:13 left.

Karl missed his second free throw, but Shah pulled the ball down and drew another foul to keep the ball out of Shorewood’s hands. The 6-foot-5 guard knocked down both shots to extend it to 52-44, and after a couple missed 3-point attempts from the Stormrays in the final minute, the Warriors walked away as league champions once again.

“(Shah’s) rebound at the end there was so huge,” Alseth said.

Added Geving: “The next two years, he’s going to be lights out for us, so those are big-time games for him to get those experiences, so I’m really proud of ‘Shay.’”

With the Wesco South title out of the way, Edmonds-Woodway is hungry for more. After losing in both the District 1 3A Championship and 3A State Championship last season, the Warriors are eager to pick up some hardware this time around. The journey will start in the Wesco Crossover game against Monroe on Saturday, which is a rematch of last year’s district final and will likely decide the top seed in this season’s bracket.

“Win the trophy this year,” Alseth said as the team’s mindset. “Last year, we lost it, and we want to cut down those nets. We definitely want to win.”