Glacier Peak boys basketball blitzes Arlington

Published 2:20 am Saturday, January 17, 2026

SNOHOMISH — Through six minutes inside a lively gymnasium at Glacier Peak High School on Friday, it looked like the battle between the top two boys basketball teams in Wesco 4A would play out as advertised.

Glacier Peak and Arlington traded baskets from the opening possessions, staying neck-and-neck up to 8-8 before Glacier Peak junior Edison Kan pulled the home side ahead with a rebound and coast-to-coast layup with just over 2:30 remaining in the first quarter.

“It was a game everyone was looking for,” Kan said. “I mean, it’s a game for first-place in the league. Everybody’s hype. Everybody’s looking forward to it. It’s on Friday night, so yeah. It was a really tight start.”

Arlington junior Mac Crews — who scored six of his team’s eight points at that point while assisting the other two — responded by nabbing a steal at half court and dishing it to senior Maveric Vaden for a go-ahead 3-pointer with just under two minutes left in the opening frame. Crews, the 5-foot-10 do-it-all guard, would score Arlington’s next two points as well, doing so on a driving layup to bring his team’s total up to 13.

That shot came with 21 seconds left… in the second quarter. For the near 10 minutes of game time in between, Glacier Peak held Arlington off the board entirely, racking up 22 points in the process to enter halftime with an assertive 32-13 lead.

The Grizzlies (13-0, 6-0 league) never let up, cruising to a 74-35 victory to increase their stranglehold atop Wesco 4A and the Eagles (10-3, 4-2 league), who slipped down to fourth in the league after entering the night in second.

“I think defensively, we just needed to stop (Crews),” said Glacier Peak senior Reed Nagel, who scored a game-high 21 points along with five rebounds and three steals. “He’s a great player. … But we also needed to take away their shooters as well. So I think on the offensive side, we got it done, but defensively, we were just locked in (entering the second quarter).”

Behind Nagel, Kan and senior Justin Vinson added 14 points each, and junior Zachary Albright had six points and seven rebounds. For the Eagles, Crews led the way with 12 points and five rebounds, while Vaden hit a trio of 3’s to finish with nine points.

Glacier Peak coach Brian Hunter echoed Nagel’s point about limiting Arlington’s chances around the perimeter, and he noticed his side starting to pick up the defensive game plan as the second quarter went on. The Grizzlies forced the Eagles to take contested 3-point attempts, or generated turnovers to eliminate the threat entirely.

On the other end of the court, as Nagel said, they got it done.

After Arlington took an 11-10 lead late in the first quarter, Glacier Peak closed it out with eight straight points, including a jumper and a driving layup from Kan within the final minute. Neither side scored within the first two minutes of the second quarter, but then Nagel took over.

The 6-foot-1 guard scored 11 consecutive points, scoring a layup after junior guard Aaron Thomas fed him the ball off a steal before scoring a putback layup off his own miss to extend the lead to 22-11 and push Arlington to call a timeout. Nagel came out of the stoppage by grabbing a defensive rebound and taking the ball up the court himself for another layup, then sank a 3-pointer from the top of the key just past the midway point of the quarter.

Nagel closed out his solo run with a stepback jumper to push the Grizzlies’ lead to 29-11, and senior Paulos Mulugeta knocked down a 3-pointer with just under 90 seconds left before Crews finally snapped the drought for Arlington with the first half winding down.

After spending previous years playing in the shadow of Josiah Lee, who established himself as one of the top players in the state before closing his decorated high school career last season, Nagel has stepped into a larger role, leading the Grizzlies to an undefeated start.

“Our successes the last three years, (Nagel) has been instrumental in that,” said Hunter, whose squads finished third in the 4A state tournament each of the past two seasons. “I just think this year, he’s added a bit of scoring to what he’s been doing before. He scored before, but people would maybe not notice him as much because (Lee) was on the court.

“And (Nagel) was okay with it. (Nagel) is a great teammate, so he was okay with helping (Lee) get some great looks, but I think (Nagel) realizes there’s opportunities for scoring now, and he’s worked on his game a lot. He’s a good shooter, good finisher, understands how to play, and sometimes he lets the game come to him a little bit, and then all of a sudden he finds his spots.”

Even with a strong halftime lead, Glacier Peak came out firing in the third quarter. After Albright knocked down a pair of free throws to open the second half and Crews answered back with a reverse layup, Nagel converted an ‘And-1’ before getting a steal and assisting Vinson under the basket.

After a scoreless first half, Vinson lit up behind the arc as the Grizzlies continued to pull away. The 6-foot-3 guard hit his first 3 of the night with 5:17 left in the third, extending the lead to 44-15 before getting a steal and dishing it down low to Nagel, who drew a foul and hit a free throw to push the lead to an even 30.

“Going into the third quarter, statistically, that’s our best quarter,” Nagel said. “We just needed to step on their throats and just not let them think that they have life.”

Vinson knocked down three more 3-pointers over the final 3:07. He flexed his arms down after each shot, getting more animated with each one. The last one pushed Glacier Peak ahead 66-24 right before the break, Vinson letting out a triumphant scream as backpedaled to half court. Hunter clapped his hands, pleased with the clinic his team was putting on. He emptied his bench for the fourth quarter, the final minutes ticking away into the 74-35 final.

“(Vinson) opens up the group a lot. … It’s really hard to counter us defensively,” Kan said. “(…) We’re probably the most in-shape team in the league. You can tell in the second half, most teams just start to break down a little bit. We adjust our game plans in the second half.”

Glacier Peak is rolling, but even after delivering a statement win against a top league opponent, Hunter & Co. are well-aware that there will be bigger games ahead.

“This is still early,” Hunter said. “I know it’s Game 13 for us, and maybe that’s same for (Arlington), but there’s a lot of really important basketball down the road, so you want to just continue to build and add to yourselves right now so that when the playoffs roll around, you’ve got a good bank of just knowledge and some things that you can build off of later.

“We talked about, ‘Don’t be satisfied.’ We want to play four quarters, and give the kids credit. They came out in the third quarter and definitely understood what we were trying to do.”