Edmonds-Woodway boys basketball remains undefeated

EVERETT — Through the first four minutes of Edmonds-Woodway boys basketball’s game against Archbishop Murphy on Wednesday, both teams were on pace to finish with a score lower than the legal drinking age.

In other words, it was a slow start.

The first four possessions between both sides ended with missed shots. Each team looked disjointed, mistiming passes and turning the ball over. With 3:45 left in the first quarter, a couple free throws from Archbishop Murphy cut the score to 5-4.

Then, a switch flipped. For Edmonds-Woodway, at least.

The Warriors (5-0, 2-0) went on a 20-0 run that extended into the second quarter, crashing the boards and disrupting passes from the Wildcats (1-2, 0-2) to run away with the lead en route to a 74-47 win.

Senior DJ Karl scored a game-high 20 points for Edmonds-Woodway, while junior Grant Williams (17 points, four rebounds) and seniors Dre Simonsen (12 points, four steals) and Julian Gray (10 points, seven rebounds) each reached double-figures.

“I feel this game, we came out trusting each other more, and the energy came from the jump because we’ve been having shaky starts,” Gray said. “So we knew we’re a good team. Teams can’t really hang with us when we’re playing our game, so if we just do it from the start and kill all hope early, it would just be, like, easier for us to build on and gain momentum.”

All four top scorers played key roles on last season’s squad that advanced all the way to the 3A State Championship, where they fell 68-48 to Rainier Beach on March 8. While four starters and a fifth key rotation player all return this season, the Warriors graduated their biggest piece, Cam Hiatt, who was named The Herald’s All-Area Player of the Year last season.

So far, Edmonds-Woodway has had no trouble filling the void Hiatt left behind, scoring under 60 points just once through five games this season (a 50-43 win against Kamiak on Dec. 10). Even without senior William Alseth, another key returner who is recovering from a wrist injury, the Warriors are proving they have the depth to score in waves.

“It was hard to fill because (Hiatt), he took a lot of shots. He basically ran our offense,” Simonsen said. “This year, we’re just moving the ball more. Especially without (Alseth), we got to trust each other more. But I feel like once (Alseth) comes back, we’ll be even better moving the ball.”

As for Archbishop Murphy, freshman Vlad Bondarchuk (13 points, six rebounds and four assists) led the way, while senior Logan Fryberg added 12 points.

The Wildcats are playing catch-up as seven of the 14 players on the varsity roster — including three starters — played for the football team, which wrapped up its season just 11 days earlier by winning the 2A State Championship at Husky Stadium. The team has only held four practices with the full team, which is on the younger side to begin with.

“They’re definitely rusty,” Archbishop Murphy coach Joe Hardy said. “They’re in the mode of hitting people right now, so we’re fouling a lot. But they’re also really good basketball players, and they’re really good people. So they’re bringing the leadership, bringing the culture that they established over there to us. … They’ll keep getting better day by day, so I’m excited about that in the future. Right now, it’s clunky, but we’ll get there.”

Hardy also gave full credit to Edmonds-Woodway in its dominant effort, sparked by relentless offensive rebounding and drawing free throws with drives to the rim. On back-to-back possessions late in the first quarter, the Warriors scored points off turnovers to increase the lead to 10 points.

First, Simonsen stole the ball and drove down the court, eventually kicking it out to Karl, who took it inside himself for a layup. Williams followed that up with a steal before scoring on the other end around tight man-to-man coverage to make it 14-4 with under 90 seconds left in the quarter.

Gray finished off the first by swishing a 3-pointer as time expired, hitting the shot despite getting knocked over. He lingered on the ground, laying on his back with his arms stretched out after giving the Warriors a 21-4 lead.

“The (clock) was going down, we recognized that, and then (Karl) trusted me to make the shot, and I hit the shot,” Gray said. “I feel like it was a good energy play. That was, like, good energy going into the second quarter.”

After ending the first quarter with 16 consecutive points, Edmonds-Woodway scored four more to begin the second before Bondarchuk finished an underhand layup on a drive to the basket to finally end the run, which lasted around 5:10 of total game time. The Archbishop Murphy freshman hit a 3-pointer two minutes later after sophomore Carter Hagen kicked it out to him, and he sunk a couple free throws before halftime, but Simonsen and Williams traded buckets for the Warriors to stretch the lead to 38-13.

Williams led off the third quarter with a couple 3s in the first three minutes, but the Wildcats picked up a full-court press, which allowed them to generate a few steals and go on a quick 8-0 run to cut the deficit to 52-26 before Edmonds-Woodway called timeout with 2:38 left before the fourth.

“We have young players with really active hands,” Hardy said. “High-IQ. They can kind of bait and get steals, and they did a good job with that. We kind of got a little tired legs that got beaten there a couple times in the press, but that’s expected. That will be something we do more and more as we go throughout the year once we get our legs underneath us a little more.”

Coming out of the timeout, it was all Karl. The senior guard erupted for all 13 points for the Warriors in a 13-2 run to finish the third quarter. Karl drew an ‘And-1’ on three straight possessions, sinking the free throw on two of them before finishing it off with a 3-pointer from Mill Creek with 20 seconds left in the third.

“He got it going,” Simonsen said. “We trusted him. We kept feeding him the ball, and it worked out. Sometimes you got to trust your teammates to make the right play, and that’s what we did.”

Carrying a comfortable 65-28 lead into the fourth, Edmonds-Woodway coach Tyler Geving emptied his bench as the two sides played out to a 74-47 final.

It’s early in the year, but the Warriors are gaining confidence that they can build on last year’s run with each game.

“We’ve all been playing for each other for a long time,” Gray said. “We’re all really good friends outside of basketball. We have all the pieces we need. When we’re all playing to our game, there’s not a lot of teams that can beat us, so it’s just like, no matter what, trusting each other and going out there and believing each other.

“And believing that, ‘Alright, we set the standard. We know what it takes to get to the state championship.’ Now it’s like, ‘Alright, we have to do all the little things that took us there because obviously we’re missing a big piece of last year’s team (in Hiatt), but we have every piece to fill that (void).’”