Her team held a slim lead in the Class 3A state championship game, but her own ship was sinking.
Meadowdale forward Justine Lewis – knowing she’d soon be trading in her high school basketball career for a pair of oars – privately scolded herself at halftime while her team discussed ways to widen its 33-31 lead over Rainier Beach.
Though rowing a boat for the University of Miami will be an adventure, she knew there are few things as grand as winning a state championship in high school. She’d done her part all season and wanted to be a factor in the title game. She’d missed her first two shots of the game – they weren’t pretty – and felt she should be taking advantage of Rainier Beach’s smaller lineup.
“I felt that I wasn’t playing to my potential in the beginning of the game,” said Lewis, who earned a crew scholarship to Miami five months after taking up the sport. “I said to myself, ‘You need to pick it up.’ I just gave myself a pep talk and picked it up.”
With Meadowdale leading by seven points in the fourth quarter, Lewis essentially put the game away. A pair of hook shots – the second of which was followed by a free throw to complete a three-point play – gave the Mavericks 55-43 cushion. Lewis then grabbed three of her eight rebounds in the final three minutes to keep the Vikings from getting second chances.
In the first half, Lewis had perhaps too much of a physical advantage. She pushed her defenders too far back and wound up taking tough shots from directly under the basket.
“She had a little one on her and she was trying to post her too far down on the block – so she was hitting off the side of the backboard,” Meadowdale coach Karen Blair said. “We talked about not getting greedy. … Get a good presence and do your thing. She’s got such a great touch and such a great left hand that we knew they weren’t going to be able to stop her.”
Said Beard: “It feels great that my time was in the fourth quarter,” Lewis said.
Best defense: Starting guard Kristine Marte did not score a point in Meadowdale’s victory, but her role in the final score was a big as anyone’s. Marte spent much of the game guarding Rainier Beach star point guard Jacqua Williams, who finished second in the tournament MVP voting. Though Williams scored 23 points, she missed 15 of 21 shots and managed only one assist.
“She did a phenomenal job on one of the best athletes I’ve seen – ever,” Blair said.
Making a point: It was an offensive outbreak the Mavericks had never witnessed. Point guard Ashley Fenimore came out firing, taking – and making – three jump shots in the first 3 1/2minutes of the first quarter. Suddenly weary of Fenimore’s unveiling of offense, Beach could no longer focus its attention completely toward Meadowdale’s leading scorers, Quinn Brewe and Anne Martin.
“That’s huge, whenever we can get some offense out of her,” Blair said. “We beg her to shoot at times. For her to come out early woke them up a little bit and made them realize they couldn’t just key in on those two.”
Things then went back to normal for the team’s best setup girl. Fenimore, who led all tournament participants with an average of 4.5 assists per game, took only one shot the rest of the way while Martin and Brewe finished with 14 and 31 points, respectively.
Late but worth the wait: The Meadowdale girls were scheduled to tip off the championship game at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Tacoma Dome but some unruly boys didn’t cooperate.
The Class 3A boys championship game between two-time defending champion Rainier Beach and O’Dea turned into a double-overtime thriller. O’Dea put the final touches on its 68-64 upset victory at 9:15 p.m. Following team photos, net cutting, interviews, net replacement and the girls’ warmups, the girls final tipped off nearly an hour late at 9:56 p.m.
Was the delay a distraction?
“Nah,” Meadowdale guard Kristine Marte said. “We were just chillin’ in the locker room.”
Not everyone used the extra time to relax.
“We were really anxious, really generating energy,” said Ashleigh Graham, Marte’s teammate.
Time of her life: Following Meadowdale’s championship victory, one of the most emotional Mavericks was wearing street clothes.
Sophomore Caitlyn Rohrbach was an integral part of Meadowdale’s 26-1 state-tournament team as a freshman last year, but an Achilles’ tendon injury kept her sidelined the entire season.
Through tears of joy, she called the night “a lifetime experience.”
“Getting this state championship under our belt really makes me want to get back and do it next year,” she said.
A good loss: For the second straight season, Meadowdale finished with a 26-1 overall record.
Last year the Mavs’ loss – a 58-56 overtime defeat against Black Hills in the state quarterfinals – dashed their title hopes. This year’s lone setback, a 69-53 non-conference home loss Jan. 17 against Class 4A Northwest District champion Snohomish, may have actually helped Meadowdale.
The Mavericks let out a collective groan every time coach Karen Blair announced it was time to watch the Snohomish game tape, but the team used evidence of its subpar performance as motivation.
“We didn’t play as a team,” Blair said of the Snohomish game, “so we knew it was something to keep in our hip pocket.”
Must be the shoes: During halftime of the girls championship game, guard Taylor Marsh and assistant coach Dean Wiley of the Meadowdale boys basketball team paired up for a timed shooting contest.
Each was faced with making two shots. Marsh needed a layin and a 3-pointer, Wiley a free throw and a half-courter. Starting with the layin, Marsh and Wiley alternated as the shots moved farther from the basket. After they combined to sink shots at the first three stations with plenty of time remaining, Wiley jogged to center court for the most difficult challenge.
He drew rim several times but couldn’t sink a half-court heave before the buzzer blared.
Speculative onlookers might have chalked it up to an equipment deficiency. While Marsh donned athletic sneakers, Wiley competed in dress pants and dress shoes.
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