STANWOOD — According to Zach Ward and his Stanwood Spartans, Monday was the second-best practice day of the year.
That’s because practicing the Monday after the district tournament means the season continues for at least one more week, into the state regional playoffs.
The best practice?
That comes the following Monday.
“The best one would be if we’re fortunate enough to practice next Monday,” Ward, the Spartans head coach, said. “The music’s on, we’re opening the doors. The sun seems to always come out during this time. I don’t know, maybe that’s just in my mind.”
This week’s practice was familiar territory for the Spartans, who have reached the regionals for the fourth consecutive season. However, this year’s team has a bit of a different look than its recent predecessors.
“We don’t have a definite, No. 1 stud guy who every night is (scoring) 18 or 19 (points) a game, like we’ve had in years past. I think that’s part of it,” Ward said. “… We play 10 guys, which is a big key. We’re sharing the ball, there’s equal scoring — we have two, three or sometimes even four guys in double figures — that’s when we’re at our best. We’re not a team that’s going to rely on one guy.”
Juniors Chase Strieby and AJ Martinka lead the Spartans in scoring at 13.0 points per game. Quinton Borseth checks in at 9.7. Bryson Kelley averages 7.3 and Austin Wilhonen scores 6.9 points and grabs 5.5 rebounds. Stanwood’s lone senior, Isaac Olson, averages 5.3 points per game off the bench, just ahead of starter Cameron Plautz (5.2).
“It makes us tough to guard,” Olson said. “We always scout other teams and you have to cut the head off the snake — stop their best player — but with our team, I don’t know who you’d try and stop. Every guy can come and bring it that night.”
Ward is quick to point out that those numbers are affected by playing time. Stanwood rotates players in and out of games and, with big leads in many contests, rested its starters late.
“All these guys play about half a game,” Ward said. “That’s one thing that gets overlooked: There’s a lot of games where those guys didn’t play the fourth quarter. I bet our leading minute guy is someone like Bryson or Chase, and I bet that number is under 20 minutes a game.”
The Spartans play unselfishly, not caring who gets the points — as long as Stanwood gets the win.
“It takes the pressure off all of us a little bit to know that everyone can do it all,” Martinka said. “We have a lot of really good players.”
Last year, Stanwood won the 3A district tournament and the right to host a regional game. The Spartans drew Kennedy Catholic, which won 68-47, ending Stanwood’s season.
“I think for me, last year, I kind of took it for granted,” said Wilhonen, a 6-foot-5 junior post. “We walked in and had been killing teams last year so it was weird to think, ‘OK, our season’s over.’ I think experiencing that, we’ve all got a different mindset now. We know what we need to take care of.”
Added Kelley: “We have a lot to prove.”
Stanwood (18-6) almost didn’t make it to back to regionals. The Spartans lost their regular-season finale to Marysville Pilchuck, then were upset by seventh-seeded Glacier Peak 72-66 in their district opener, forcing them to win three consecutive loser-out games in order to advance. The Spartans responded to the challenge, beating Arlington and Ferndale, then winning a rematch with Glacier Peak in the third-place, winner-to-regionals game.
“Knowing that you’ve got to win three games in a row against teams that are just as hungry as you are — after you just lost two in a row — there was some doubt,” Ward said. “But also, along with that, it created urgency. Now it’s for real. We knew going into the Marysville Pilchuck game that we had wrapped up the No. 1 (seed) and a week later it was a totally different situation where if you lose again, your season is over.”
Ward said he hopes that sense of urgency continues into this weekend. He said his team, which features eight juniors, three sophomores and the one senior, should be more focused when the Spartans take on Enumclaw (13-11) at noon Saturday at Rogers High School in Puyallup.
“This whole group was sophomores (last season) during that experience and I think that can be a little overwhelming when you’re 14 or 15 years old and you’re in the game where the gym is packed and it kind of hits you that, ‘This is everything,’” Ward said. “Having gone through that and struggled that night, I’m hoping that there’s a different approach this week where they’re more excited and more prepared and just feeding off what we did last week.”
With a win Saturday, the Spartans advance to the 3A quarterfinals at the Tacoma Dome for the first time since 2014. Olson and Martinka are the only players remaining from that squad, which placed sixth.
“It’s such a cool experience and I want all these guys to have it too. And I want to have it my senior year,” Olson said.
Added Martinka: “One of our goals was to win districts, and we didn’t do that. We took third. So, I think to kind of redeem ourselves for that, we have to get this regional game and get to (Tacoma). … I think we need to win this game to make our season really complete.”
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