SNOHOMISH – Human cloning may not be legal, but Ken Roberts comes as close as you can get.
His Snohomish basketball team is loaded with girls who can shoot and play relentless defense. Leave any of them open, and the scorekeeper can pretty much put two or three points in the book. If the opponent loses focus for a second on offense, the ball will soon be headed the other way for a layup.
Tuesday night was another example of the success of Roberts’ basketball assimilation experiment. The Panthers crushed Lake Stevens 54-19 in a Western Conference North Division game at Snohomish High School to keep their perfect record (5-0 in the division, 7-0 overall) intact.
“It’s actually kind of hard to coach in a way,” said Roberts of his team of similarities. “It’s kind of easy and kind of hard, because I can throw anyone in.”
He threw them all at the Vikings, who made seven of 33 field goals (21 percent) and committed 25 turnovers against Snohomish’s constant press.
“I think they are one of the top three teams in the state,” Lake Stevens coach Tom Tri said. “That being said, we are better than we played tonight. We were lousy tonight.”
Lake Stevens scored eight points in the first half and two in the third to fall behind 48-10. The Vikings missed their first six free throws and finished the game 5-for-15. It was a bizarre night for a team that started the season 6-0. Lake Stevens (3-3, 7-3) has now lost to Snohomish, Monroe and Oak Harbor – the three teams considered to be division title contenders.
Snohomish’s secret to success on Wednesday was keeping the ball out of the hands of 6-foot-4 center Katie Holloway. Every player on Snohomish’s roster is under six feet, but Holloway’s opportunities were rare. The Cal State Northridge-bound senior scored nearly half of her team’s points (eight) and grabbed five rebounds.
“The main thing is stopping her guards from being able to get the ball,” said Snohomish point guard Kristin Moore, who scored six of her eight points in the first 9 1/2 minutes. “Without the guards, she won’t be able to do anything because she won’t be able to get the ball inside.”
In between defensive stops, the Panthers scored the way they normally do – in a variety of ways by a variety of people. In a near-perfect duplication of their statistical averages, nine players scored, including five of them with seven or more points.
Freshman Amanda Best – who leads the team with 13.2 points per game – started slow, missing six of her first seven 3-point tries while the Panthers built a 23-8 halftime lead.
Things really got ugly when she started hitting. Best scored nine of her game-high 12 points in the final four minutes of the third quarter to give Snohomish a 38-point lead after three quarters. The Panthers scored 25 points to the Vikings’ two in the third. Lake Stevens outscored Snohomish’s reserves 9-6 in the fourth.
Sydney Benson (eight points), Tara Angell (seven) and Kelsey Manning contributed to the Panthers’ balanced attack. Emily Cassidy, a 5-foot-10 post who spent much of the evening guarding Holloway, finished with a game-high nine rebounds.
Lake Stevens-Estes 4, Fraser 2, Mace 2, Kelly 1, Fisher 2, Holloway 8. Snohomish-Manning 7, Best 12, Henderson 4, Moore 8, Angell 7, Rathke 2, Marshall 2, Benson 8, Cassidy 4. 3-point goals-Manning 1, Best 4, Angell 1. JV score-Snohomish 44, Lake Stevens 17. Records-Lake Stevens 3-3 in division, 7-3 overall. Snohomish 4-0, 6-0. |
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