Archbishop Murphy girls smother Anacortes in district quarterfinals

EVERETT — Kani Cham had been waiting all week for Thursday night.

With 10 days between Archbishop Murphy girls basketball’s final regular season game and Thursday’s home matchup against Anacortes in the District 1 2A quarterfinals, the team had plenty of time to prepare.

Cham instantly put that preparation to good use.

The 6-foot junior generated a turnover in the first minute after senior Brooke Blachly tied the game 2-2. Blachly missed a 3-point attempt following the steal, but Cham pulled down the rebound and kicked it back to Blachly up top, where she nailed it to give Archbishop Murphy a 5-2 lead.

After a layup from junior Ashley Fletcher, Cham scored her team’s next six points, with two of her three field goals coming on putback layups. Less than halfway through the first quarter, Archbishop Murphy stormed to a 13-4 lead.

“I was just going out there and giving it my all,” Cham said. “I feel like I was just ready for this game because we’ve been preparing all week, running the treadmills, the bikes and doing ropes leading up to this moment and the rest of the playoff season.”

Cham’s relentless effort on the glass set the tone for the No. 2 seed Wildcats (17-4) in a 76-18 win against the No. 7 seed Seahawks (7-13) to advance to the district semifinals.

Blachly scored a game-high 32 points, connecting on six 3’s in the first half and eight total. Cham had 14 points and seven rebounds, the majority coming on the offensive glass.

“Everyone on the bench was hyped. Everyone on the court was hyped, like (Cham) just brought (out) a whole new player,” Archbishop Murphy coach Ebany Herd said. “It was like ‘Kani 2.0’ out there.”

After out-rebounding Anacortes 21-5 in the first half, Archbishop Murphy allowed just two points in the second half. Applying a press defense early, the Wildcats stuck to their assignments and forced turnovers all game. Fletcher (eight points, five steals, four rebounds) and fellow junior Celine Wright (nine points, eight rebounds, six steals, two blocks) stuffed the stat sheet by wreaking havoc on the Seahawks attack all game.

“This whole week leading up to this, we’ve been just so focused on defense,” Blachly said. “Because that has kind of been something we’ve wanted to put together this whole season, like a full defensive game. I think just all the two-hour practices every day, the work that we put in practice, we go at each other. We’re making sure that we’re being competitive and we’re not going soft, so we can be ready for these games and be ready to compete with everybody.”

Adelaide Nigro, who led Anacortes with nine points, ended Archbishop Murphy’s 13-2 run with a 3-pointer, but Blachly responded by knocking down two 3’s in a row to extend the lead to 19-7 with around 3:45 left in the quarter. The first one came off an offensive rebound from junior Kyla Fryberg, which kept the possession alive.

Coming off the bench late in the first, Wright was all over the floor to help build the lead. After finishing on a pass inside from Blachly with around two minutes left in the first, Wright grabbed a steal and sent an outlet pass up to Cham for an easy bucket. Wright scored on the next possession with a putback layup before Cham scored off yet another offensive rebound with about 20 seconds left before the break to make it 30-9.

“(We were) celebrating all the little things,” Cham said. “Even if we got good defensive stops and just rebounds, I feel like we were celebrating everything. And we didn’t get down on each other the whole game. Even if we made a mistake, we would just cheer each other on and say, ‘We got the next one.’ And I just feel like we were all there mentally and physically.”

In a 3:45 span that ended with three minutes before halftime, Blachly scored 11 consecutive points for the Wildcats, finishing off a pass from Fletcher on a fast break before knocking down three treys to extend the lead to 43-11.

The train kept rolling into the second half, which Archbishop Murphy opened with a 7-0 run before Nigro scored less than halfway through the third to cut it to 54-18. Those would be the final points Anacortes scored all game. The Wildcats never let up defensively while closing the game on a 22-0 run.

“I think our only focus this postseason has been defense, defense, defense in practice,” Herd said. “We’re really trying to buy into that whole role of doing your job on defense and then the rest of the game is going to take care of itself. And I think that they finally just bought into that, but now the goal is to keep them on that same path throughout the rest of the postseason.”

Fletcher extended the lead to 40 points with around 4:30 left in the third, blocking a Seahawks shot before getting around a defender with a crossover and driving to the rim to push it to 58-18. Blachly rattled in her eighth 3 of the game with around 30 seconds left before the fourth to make it 64-18. Wright drew a foul on a putback attempt as time expired, and scored on a free throw to make it 65-18 heading into the final quarter.

Since falling to Meadowdale 74-65 on Jan. 29 — which snapped a month-long, 10-game win streak — Archbishop Murphy has come back stronger with a 77-43 win against Mountlake Terrace on Feb. 2 and Thursday’s 76-18 victory.

“You have tough losses in the season, and it sucks,” Blachly said. “Losing sucks. We all hate losing. And I think that really allowed us to come together. You don’t want to lose, but it helped us really push through that. … I think this is the most together we’ve been. This is the most competitive that we’ve been, and that was probably one of the best defensive games we’ve had all season.”

The Wildcats will face the No. 3 seed Squalicum in the semifinals at Mount Vernon High School on Saturday, where they’ll aim to get back to the championship game for the third year in a row. After losses to Lynden in each of the past two finals, Archbishop Murphy will focus on winning in the margins and staying connected as a group.

“We’re going to see talent. We understand that and we get that,” Herd said. “At this point in the season, it’s not about the talent anymore. It’s all the little intangibles that are going to kind of carry us through. So we’re really focusing on those little things.”