AUBURN — Alona Personius has had an up and down high school basketball career.
The Lake Stevens senior guard played on the junior varsity as a freshman and sophomore, then took her junior year off before Vikings coach Randall Edens coaxed her back this season.
And Personius picked a great stage to have her reunion party, as she scored 19 points and notched four 3-pointers as the Vikings beat the Jesuit Crusaders of Portland, Ore., 66-50 in a physical battle to win the “White” Division of the third annual Riverside Invitational in Auburn on Saturday.
“We’ve been waiting for this to happen,” Edens said of Personius’ breakout performance. “She’s that kind of shooter in practice all the time and it just hasn’t happened yet until today, and what a great day to have it happen.”
Personius was particularly lethal to the Crusaders in the second half, as she connected for three 3-pointers and had 16 of her 19 points. “White” Division Most Valuuable Player Mary Ochiltree was also deadly, scoring 17 of her game-high 25 points in the second half.
“I think it’s huge,” Personius said of the team’s 3-0 run in the tournament, which included wins over 4A second-ranked Moses Lake Friday and the victory over 2007 Oregon 6A state runner-up Jesuit Saturday. “We just played together and didn’t worry about who we were playing — we just played with each other.”
Lake Stevens opened with a man-to-man defense as Jesuit jumped out to a 16-11 lead after one quarter. Then the Vikings scrapped it for a 2-3 zone, which they employed for the remainder of the game.
“We figured they’d be a little weary-legged on day three, but we didn’t want to show that right away,” Edens said of his team’s defensive switch at the beginning of the second quarter.
Julianne Brands’ three-pointer put Jesuit up 24-16 with three minutes to play in the first half, but then the Vikings went on a 7-4 run to end the half and entered the third quarter behind 28-23.
The Vikings opened the third quarter with baskets by Brittany Tri and Karri Gallagher before Jesuit’s Meaghan White put the Crusaders ahead 31-27 with a 3-pointer.
Then Personius went to work. She hit back-to-back 3-pointers and added another short jumper to give Lake Stevens its first lead since the opening quarter at 35-31 with 5:35 remaining in the third period.
It was a lead the Vikings would not relinquish. Personius made three straight free throws after being fouled on another 3-point attempt to open the fourth quarter, then added another 3-pointer with 3:28 to go to put the Vikings up 50-44. Ochiltree hit nine of 10 free throws in the fourth quarter to ice what was an extremely physical contest.
“We didn’t adjust (to the tight officiating),” Jesuit coach Kathy Adelman Naro said. “(The referees) called it how they saw it and they did a good job and we didn’t react well.”
White led the Crusaders with 15 points and Sarah Griffin added 10.
In addition to Ochiltree, Gallagher was also named to the “White” Division all-tournament team.
“These are monster wins for us,” Edens said. “This puts us on the map. We were solid for the most part. We need to do a little better job keeping our personalities in check, but I thought for the most part we did a pretty good job of that.”
At Auburn Riverside H.S.
Jesuit16121012—50
L. Stevens11121819—66
Jesuit—Brands 5, Griffin 10, Nelson 9, Disxon, Wilkins, Munk 3, White 15, Marquand, Brenner 6, Wellington 2, Lowe. Lake Stevens—Ochiltree 25, Tri 7, Bostwick 4, Warbis 1, Goddard 2, Tate, Schumacher, Personius 19, Gallagher 8. 3 point goals—Personius 4, Ochiltree 1, White 4, Brands 1. Records—Jesuit not reported. Lake Stevens 8-0 overall.
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