MOUNT VERNON — The Lakewood boys basketball team saw its best season in a decade come to an end Tuesday.
The Cougars ran into a Mountlake Terrace team looking to redeem itself after a stunning upset loss in its district opener, and the Hawks defeated Lakewood 56-39 in a Class 2A Bi-District loser-out game at Skagit Valley College.
“I think they’ll look back on (the season) positively,” Lakewood head coach Anthony Wiederkehr said. “Obviously we wanted to do better in districts than we did. This was a bad time to shoot poorly. We kind of had our hot streak and it couldn’t go for one more week.”
Lakewood, which went winless in conference play just two seasons ago, ended its season 16-7. The Cougars remain in search of their first state tournament berth in school history.
Terrace (20-2) plays Anacortes in a loser-out, winner-to-state game Thursday at Mount Vernon High School.
“At this point you’re happy you get another day in the gym,” Terrace coach Nalin Sood said. “We had a good Sedro(-Woolley) team, we had a good Lakewood team and now we get a good Anacortes team. The right teams will deserve to move on and we hope we can work hard enough and compete our tails off and see what happens Thursday.”
Terrace has high hopes for the remainder of its postseason. The Class 2A school won the regular-season Class 3A Wesco title, only to fall 53-51 on a desperation 3-pointer to Sedro-Woolley in its district opener Saturday.
“If you coach long enough you see crazy things,” Sood said. “But on Sunday night we tried to move on. I give these kids credit. How do you move on from something like that? It takes a special group of kids. It takes kids… who really love basketball because you get another opportunity.”
The Hawks didn’t give Lakewood the chance to hang around Tuesday.
Terrace led by 11 at the break. The Hawks’ advantage swelled to 14 during the third and Terrace took a 39-29 lead after three complete before closing out the Cougars in the fourth quarter.
“I think right now they’re just disappointed overall,” Wiederkehr said. “I felt like we had a good chance to win this game and we just didn’t put ourselves in a position to do it tonight.”
Terrace used a 12-0 run in the second quarter to open up a double-digit lead. Brendan Hayes had a 3-pointer and Mason Petersen had a pair of treys as the Hawks took a 29-18 lead into the intermission.
“I think they were pretty confident at the end of the first quarter,” Wiederkehr said. “It just hurts when you’re not getting any production. We tried a few different things, but nothing seemed to click tonight on offense.”
Khyree Armstead had seven of Terrace’s 11 first-quarter points, including a dunk in transition and a 3-pointer. Alex Jensen had six points for Lakewood in the first quarter as the teams were knotted 11-11 after the first eight minutes.
Jensen finished with 13 points to lead Lakewood.
Four different players reached double figures in a balanced Terrace effort. Petersen led the way with 16 while Armstead added 13.
“We’ve got big goals,” Sood said. “We know a lot of teams in the district do, but you can’t look too far ahead. If you (do) you’re going to trip in front of you. So the goal now was being successful on Tuesday night and the next goal is go be successful on Thursday night.”
