MILL CREEK — The Edmonds-Woodway girls basketball team has been playing must-win games for over a week.
Fortunately for the Warriors, they keep winning them.
Edmonds-Woodway, which had to defeat Oak Harbor in a play-in game to even get to the district tournament on Feb. 11, bounced back after a loss to No. 1 Lynnwood in its district opener and made its way through the consolation bracket with three consecutive wins. The Warriors’ latest victory was the biggest, with Edmonds-Woodway defeating Shorewood 43-35 in the 3A District 1 third-place game Saturday afternoon and clinching a berth in regionals.
“We got that Lynnwood game and we played them well,” said Edmonds-Woodway coach Rebekah Wells. “The girls were coming into that game saying, ‘We’re not scared of them. We know we could play them.’ I knew we could only go up from there. It was all about the mental preparation for us.”
Both the Warriors and Shorewood dropped their district openers. The two teams battled back and forth on Saturday until Missy Peterson took over in the fourth quarter. Peterson had eight of her game-high 24 in the final period, including a 25-foot 3-pointer and a bucket as the shot clock expired to keep Edmonds-Woodway (15-10) out in front.
“She’s been huge,” Wells said. “A lot of times she’s come in as the underclassman — she’s still an underclassman compared to the seniors — and takes a back seat. All of our coaches have been telling her, ‘Missy, we think you can score whenever you want to.’ … She knows now, ‘I can do this.’”
Junior Taryn Shelley led Shorewood (14-10) with 14 points.
The win sends the Warriors to the regional round for the first time since 2014, when the current Edmonds-Woodway seniors were sophomores and Peterson was a freshman.
“The girls really want to go to the Tacoma Dome. … That’s really always what they want to do,” Wells said. “The regional berth isn’t (all they want). They’re going to still fight. They know these are going to be very good teams but coming through Wesco and knowing some of these are the top teams in the state, they know they can play with them and that we’re definitely peaking at the right moment. We’ve prepared all season for this.”
At Jackson H.S.
Ed.-Woodway136915—43
Shorewood88118—35
Edmonds-Woodway—Ally Burdett 0, Mady Burdett 10, Ingrid Fosberg 0, Maddie Tudor 4, Adrienne Poling 2, Marivel Ortega 0, Courtney Simpson 3, Missy Peterson 24. Shorewood—Jalyn Hizey 4, Abby Gustafson 3, Dakota Laut 4, Kaitlyn Amundsen 0, Lily Gustafson 4, Katie Taylor 6, Taryn Shelley 14. Records—Edmonds-Woodway 15-10 overall, Shorewood 14-10.
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