Shorewood boys upset top-seeded Edmonds-Woodway in district semis

EDMONDS — Many things about Shorewood boys basketball’s District 1 3A semifinal matchup against Edmonds-Woodway on Tuesday were the same as they were nearly two weeks prior, when Shorewood lost 55-48 in the regular-season finale to decide the Wesco South 3A/2A title.

It was the same opponent, in the same gymnasium. From the outside looking in, one may expect the same outcome. It was up to Shorewood to make sure things turned out different on Tuesday. So they made a sweeping change in the program’s focus.

“Our offense, for whatever reason, hasn’t been at its best,” Shorewood coach Joey Petschl said. “And so last week and this week, all we worked on was defense and said, ‘Screw it, we’re going back to the old Shorewood ways. We’re just not going to let you score.’”

The No. 4 seed Stormrays (17-7) did just that, not allowing any points for the first five minutes of the game and making just enough stops down the stretch to fend off the top-seeded Warriors (21-3) in a 42-40 win to advance to the District Championship.

Junior Thomas Moles led Shorewood with 15 points and seven rebounds, while seniors Nathan Abraha (10 points, four rebounds, two steals) and Jaden Marlow (nine points on three 3-pointers) filled important roles on both sides of the court. Senior William Alseth (11 points, 10 rebounds) posted a double-double for Edmonds-Woodway in the loss.

Edmonds-Woodway hit a season-low with 40 points, which beat last year’s low from its 41-34 win against Mount Spokane in the 3A state semifinals in Tacoma on Mar. 7, 2025. The Warriors missed on several looks on Tuesday that they probably would like to have back, but the Stormrays made life difficult for them by trying to force them to their weak side and making them earn every basket.

“They’re still great players, so they got some buckets,” Moles said. “But that’s kind of the main change we had, was getting them to their left and having our help corral them from there.”

Edmonds-Woodway worked its way back from multiple deficits to put themselves in position for a go-ahead bucket coming out of a timeout trailing 41-40 with 15.2 seconds left. The Warriors managed to get the ball inside for an attempt at a game-winning layup, but it bounced out as another Edmonds-Woodway player committed a foul to send Shorewood to the line with 1.2 seconds left. Sophomore Tyler Marlow made the first one to make it 42-40, but Alseth pulled down the rebound on the second and called timeout with 0.9 seconds left to create one more chance.

The Warriors executed a full-court pass on the inbound from their own baseline, but without much time to set up an ideal shot, the ball bounced off the backboard and out as Shorewood held on for the win.

Out of just three losses for Edmonds-Woodway this season, two came at the hands of the Stormrays. After losing in last year’s District Championship to Monroe en route to their State Finals run, the Warriors will not have the opportunity for redemption. Instead, they face the No. 6 seed Everett with their season on the line in a loser-out consolation game at Jackson High School on Saturday.

“I just think they were more intense and tougher than we were tonight,” Edmonds-Woodway coach Tyler Geving said. “We just had a little stretch there where we just kind of wilted a little bit, mentally. And give (Shorewood) credit, they played extremely physical and we didn’t match their physicality all night. … You can’t pout about it. Face adversity. You got to be ready to go Saturday morning.”

The Stormrays opened the game with a 5-0 lead, but couldn’t maximize on the Warriors’ slow start. Despite missing its first four 3-point attempts, Edmonds-Woodway managed to tie it 5-5 on a 3 from senior Julian Gray with just under two minutes left in the quarter. Jaden Marlow responded with a 3 to put Shorewood back in the lead, but junior Grant Williams knocked down a couple of shots for the Warriors to cut the deficit to 10-9 entering the second quarter.

Jaden Marlow struck again from deep with six minutes left in the half to make it 17-13, which is where the score stayed for over three minutes until Moles hit a free throw to make it 18-13 with 2:50 left. Layups from Gray and senior Dre Simonsen cut it to 18-17 with 1:55 left in the second. Junior Yuto Allison responded by knocking down a 3 from the top of the key, and Moles hit a tough shot under the basket following a block from Abraha at the other end to extend it to 23-17 with just over a minute remaining.

“Basketball’s a game of runs,” Moles said. “They’ll have their runs and we’ll have ours. So we just got to stay confident. If they hit a 3, we can’t come down, chuck up a 3 right away. We got to just do our stuff, play our game, and still keep working on the defensive end, even when offense isn’t working.”

Senior DJ Karl ended the first half by rolling in a 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut it to 23-20, and Alseth converted an ‘And-1’ just 11 seconds into the third quarter to tie it up. The two sides traded shots to keep things tied 30-30, but Jaden Marlow knocked down another 3 after Moles drew a charge at the other end with 2:45 left before the fourth quarter.

Before Edmonds-Woodway could tie it up once again, Abraha stole the ball near half court and dished it up to Jaden Marlow on a fast break. Abraha sprinted down the lane, where Marlow fed the ball back to him. The 6-foot-3 wing elevated to the rim and finger rolled the ball into the hoop to extend the lead to 35-30, creating the first multi-possession lead for either side since early in the second quarter.

“I saw the fast break. I saw (Marlow) up ahead, threw it to him,” Abraha said. “I didn’t know he would throw it back. He threw it back, and I just shot it.”

Added Moles, simply: “It’s what he does.”

Abraha picked up two more points on free throws, making his way to the basket with nice footwork before drawing a foul, to give Shorewood a 37-31 lead entering the final frame, which Abraha opened with another steal and a breakaway layup to make it 39-31 with 7:28 left.

But Edmonds-Woodway was the top seed for a reason. The Warriors executed a 9-0 run to pull ahead 40-39, slowly closing in at the deficit as the Stormrays’ shots stopped falling. Alseth finished off a pass from Karl in the paint to give his side the lead with just under two minutes to play, but Moles stopped the bleeding by knocking down two free throws to put Shorewood back on top 41-40 with 1:26 left.

Just two weeks after shooting 3-for-11 from the line in the fourth quarter against Edmonds-Woodway, missing out on eight points in a seven-point loss to lose the league title, Shorewood scored the winning points with two foul shots and went 7-for-9 (77.8%) on the night.

Leaning on their new defense-first identity, the Stormrays are heading to state for the second straight year after breaking a 38-year drought last season. Shorewood will face the No. 3 seed Snohomish in the District 1 3A Championship at Jackson High School on Saturday.

“Our team is so deep. Everybody plays a role,” Moles said. “Some games, I might have 20. (Abraha) might have 20. The next game, we both have zero, and someone else steps up. And I think just showing that we have that and that we’re going to stay fighting to the very last minute whether we’re up 20 or down 20, and in a close game like this, I think that plays a huge role. …

“Last year, we didn’t go as far as we’d like to (losing in the opening round at state). So this year, we’re going to celebrate this one, but then it’s onto the next. We got bigger goals than just this game.”