MILL CREEK — All season long, Mountlake Terrace has shown its ability to contribute up and down the roster. On any given night, it’s hard to guess which Hawk will step up and make the biggest impact. On Wednesday night at Jackson High School, many of them showed up across the board.
Terrace beat Mount Vernon 74-60 in a District 1 3A semifinal game to clinch a state tournament bid, advancing to the district final against Arlington on Saturday, which will take place at 8 p.m. at Everett Community College.
In a slugfest of a matchup against the Bulldogs of Mount Vernon (17-6), the Hawks (17-5), came out gunning as a unit as they built a 20-6 lead by the end of the opening quarter.
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Six different Terrace players scored in the first, with sophomore post Svayjeet Singh doing most of his work in the frame, when he scored all six of his points, adding five of his 11 total rebounds.
Junior wing Jaxon Dubiel registered a team-high 18 points to go along with four boards and two steals, senior Chris Meegan had 14 points and four rebounds.
Sophomore guard Rayshaun Conner came off the bench and delivered 15 points (10 in the first half) with three 3-pointers, and junior Zaveon Jones collected eight points, nine boards and three assists. Junior Logan Tews added eight points.
Mount Vernon had four double-digit scorers in the contest, led by junior guard Quinn Swanson, who scored a game-high 19 points.
“Two good teams going at it,” longtime Terrace coach Nalin Sood said, “and two good teams that got to this point because of something they do well. You can tell they’re a good basketball team, they play in a tough league, and they have five guys on the court who can score.”
The Hawks wouldn’t relinquish their early lead the rest of the way, but the Bulldogs eventually made things interesting. They went on a 13-5 run to shave the lead down to six as they trailed 25-19 with 3:04 in the half.
Terrace responded with a 20-8 run spanning through the opening stages of the third. Meegan dropped in the Hawks first three buckets of the period as Terrace opened up a 45-27 lead midway through the frame.
“It was one of those games where in the third quarter, teams are gonna make jumps at you,” Meegan said. “It’s the playoffs and that’s just how it goes. Being us, we were able to contain it with our defense and communication. Something we’ve been working on all season. Tonight we were able to get it done, and that’s all I’m happy about.”
The Bulldogs made another push with a 14-4 run heading into the fourth down 49-41 and would draw as close as five as Meegan took a hard fall and wouldn’t return until later in the fourth when Mountlake Terrace led 54-49 with 4:38 left.
Dubiel reeled off 11 of his 18 points in the final quarter, putting it away for good on a transition lay-in off a full court pass from Jones to make it 63-51 with 2:30 remaining.
“That was a grind it out type of basketball game,” Sood said. “They’re too good not to come back and make a game out of it, and they did. I’m glad we weathered the storm, we weathered it with some guys who came off the bench, but they’re more than capable of doing positive things for us. So, That makes it rewarding knowing that it was a good team effort.”
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