“Pressure, pressure, pressure!” shouted Stanwood High School girls basketball head coach Dustin Swanson in the third quarter of Saturday night’s 52-39 overtime win at Monroe High School.
Swanson’s animation was perhaps triggered by the fact that he was watching one of the few possessions that his team didn’t try to trap Monroe in the backcourt. The Spartans, who moved to 2-0, were built to play 84 feet of defense for entire games at a time. To this point, they had forced too many turnovers to count.
“We have a lot of girls that have that high motor… you can’t force kids to have that motor, so it starts with that,” said Swanson of his team’s aggressive nature. “I like the kids coming off the bench giving us the depth to do it.”
On top of their stifling defense, junior forward Ellalee Wortham had a game-high 23 points, scoring from all over the inner arc in the contest. But Wortham attributed the Spartans’ success to their commitment to Swanson’s defensive principles.
“We’re running at practice… practicing our lungs,” Wortham said. “Just being able to easily rotate all of our girls through and just having a positive mindset… (we know) if we play this tough defense, we’re going to get it and it’s going to reward us on offense.”
Despite Wortham’s great game and Stanwood’s defense, Stanwood led just 38-35 with 1:23 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Monroe (0-3), despite having issues breaking Stanwood’s fierce traps, was able to feed forward Cascadia Yates (14 points) in the post consistently. When they weren’t able to play through Yates, who had 14 points, issues arose. After Yates took a momentary breather on the bench in the second quarter, the Bearcats had three straight turnovers.
“Throughout the game, we needed to slow down and be a little more composed because we had quite a few turnovers in the first half,” said Yates. “I know that if we can get the ball inside and our shots are dropping, we can take any team.”
Monroe senior guard Halle Keller tied Yates’ offensive contribution with 14 points of her own, and scored a spinning layup to cut the Stanwood lead to one with just over 30 seconds left in regulation.
Down 38-37, Monroe head coach Tyson Horner called his own fullcourt trap. Keller’s twin sister, Hope, got a clutch steal under Stanwood’s basketball and was fouled with 28.6 seconds remaining in the game, prompting a deafening roar from the Monroe faithful. She would go one for two from the charity stripe to knot the contest at 38.
The back-and-forth affair headed to overtime after a close miss on a last-second runner from Stanwood senior guard Jazmyn Legg.
Legg, who had just three points in the game to that point, shook that miss off nearly immediately. She hit a moving catch-and-shoot three from the left wing to open the extra period, only to hit another later in the overtime period after some clutch defense from Stanwood stopped the Monroe comeback effort in its tracks.
Legg’s run over Monroe was stretched to 8-0 over the first 2:50 of the four-minute overtime period after two more free throws, effectively ending the contest. Free throws from both teams ended up giving Stanwood a 14-1 advantage in OT.
“She kind of had to do a reset, and the team had her back,” said Swanson of Legg’s recovery from missing at the end of regulation. “She was able to excel in overtime and push us over the finish line.”
Although both teams had bright spots to build on, Swanson believes Stanwood’s ability to pester opponents will be their calling card going forward.
“With a big motor and playing as hard as we can… ‘defense first,’ I think, is our identity,” said Swanson.
The Spartans will look to push their record to 3-0 when they host Sehome High School on Tuesday night. Monroe will be looking for their first win when they travel to Jackson High School on Wednesday night.
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