Team effort lifts M-P to ‘huge’ win over Spartans

Published 4:41 pm Wednesday, January 7, 2009

MARYSVILLE — Basketball is a team sport and the Marysville-Pilchuck Tomahawks boys basketball team is proving that every time it steps on the court.

Using a balanced scoring attack and tough defense, the Tomahawks separated themselves from Stanwood by defeating the Spartans 56-42 in an early season Western Conference North Division clash at Marysville-Pilchuck High School Tuesday night.

“It’s huge. It puts in a good position. We’re really in a good, balanced Wesco North. You can’t take any team for granted,” Marysville-Pilchuck head coach Bary Gould said.

And Spartan head coach Zach Ward concurred that Tuesday night’s game was a big one.

“It’s huge. It’s the biggest game you can have early season,” Ward said noting that the now 1½ game difference in the standings is, “a big swing now. We’ve got some work to do.”

As is the norm this season for Marysville-Pilchuck, multiple Tomahawk players scored in double-figures. Senior forward Nick Forsythe led all scorers with 15 points and teammate Tyler Holm added 13 to lead Marysville-Pilchuck (4-1 in league, 5-3 overall).

“We wanted to control the defensive effort. Our goal was to hold them to 10 points a quarter,” Forsythe said, which they nearly did, allowing fewer than 10 points in the second and fourth quarters and just 11 in the third.

“It was good to have team effort … unselfish which is easy to play for,’ Holm said.

Marysville-Pilchuck’s defense constantly hounded the Spartans offense, holding Stanwood to just 26 points in the final three quarters and keeping Stanwood’s stars Zack Johnson to (eight points) and Kale Schmidt (five) to a combined 13 points. Both Johnson and Schmidt entered the game averaging a combined 23.4 points a contest.

“Those kids have been good since their freshman year … when you have two players like that if you don’t focus on them you get beat,” Gould said.

“It was very frustrating. Their defense obviously caused us problems. They had good man-defense. We just couldn’t deal with it,” Ward said.

Anchoring the defense was 6-foot-8 center Spencer Elwell.

Playing the part of Dikembe Mutumbo, Elwell hasn’t been asked to put up many points on the offensive end, but instead has been altering shots in the paint, posting two games of 10-plus blocked shots.

“Unreal,” said Gould. “He’s being doing that game in and game out. He’s so steady defensively.”

Showing what Gould preaches — “a lot of heart” — the Tomahawks got surprise play from Troy Toler off the bench.

Toler’s aggressive defense frustrated the Spartans into numerous turnovers and his late-second quarter offense allowed the Tomahawks to pull ahead of Stanwood. Toler’s 3-point shot snapped a two minute 20-20 tie and his deep 3-pointer allowed the Tomahawks to take a 26-22 lead.

“He’s been doing it all year in practice,” Gould said. “We keep believing in him, he started to believe in himself and that was a huge part of our success.”

It’s that type of play that has allowed the Tomahawks to begin the season on top of the Wesco North standings.

“All out heart, hustle and effort … They really gave it their all,” Gould said.

Stanwood, predicted to finish atop the Wesco North standings by the division’s coaches, fell to 2-2 in league and 4-4 overall.

At Marysville-Pilchuck H.S.

Stanwood168117—42

M-P14141216—56

Stanwood—Asher, Wark, Haugstad 7, Schmidt 5, Orcutt 1, Johnson 8, Solvberg 9, Chabot 12, Hushagen, Jacobs, Jamieson. M-P—Holm 13, Busichio, Soriano 3, Toler 10, Lanphere 10, Godsey, Forsythe 15, Elwell 5, Stevens. 3-pointers—Haugstad 1, Soriano 1, Toler 2, Forsythe 1. Records—Stanwood 2-2 in league, 4-4 overall. Marysville-Pilchuck 4-1, 5-3.