ARLINGTON — Jazmyn Legg had all day to shoot. With 1:41 left in the Girls 3A State Basketball opening round, her team leading by six against Seattle Prep, the Stanwood senior stood with the ball, a couple feet behind the 3-point arc. She had already hit five 3-pointers on the night, but for some reason, no defender stepped toward her.
Legg hesitated, surprised she was left with space large enough to be tax-eligible, then gathered her shot and launched.
Swish.
The No. 4 seed Spartans (21-4) went ahead by nine before eventually winning 54-42 against the No. 5 seed Panthers (20-8), advancing to the Final 8 in the Tacoma Dome next week.
As far as Stanwood coach Dustin Swanson was concerned, the game ended with Legg’s last 3.
“That’s when I first felt like, ‘Ok, we got it,’” Swanson said. “I’m never comfortable even until they stop trying to foul, to be honest, but in that moment, I felt confident like, ‘Oh, ok, I believe it.’”
Perhaps Seattle Prep figured that shot was not in Legg’s range. If the score wasn’t answer enough, Legg confirmed it was after the game. She was corroborated by junior Ellalee Wortham, who made a face as if someone earnestly asked her, ‘Is the sky blue?’
It was never in doubt.
“I was a little bit (surprised), but I think that was the one where (sophomore) Camrie (Ingram) set the screen, so that was a really, really good screen,” Legg said. “So props to her, too.”
As much credit as they doled out to their teammates, Legg (22 points) and Wortham (20 points) combined for 42 of Stanwood’s 54 points (77.8 percent), doing most of the heavy lifting whenever the Panthers pushed back.
Before cruising to victory, Stanwood started slow out of the gate, not scoring for the first 3:43 of the contest. Legg hit her first 3-pointer to finally get her team on the board, and Prep had only scored four, making it a one-point game. The two sides traded buckets from there to make it 11-11 after one quarter.
Legg went on a mini-run towards the end of the second to help Stanwood pull away by scoring the Spartans’ next three field goals — all from behind the arc. Wortham hit a 3-pointer of her own with 30 seconds left before Prep sophomore Kylin Kinchen hit two free throws, making it 31-22 entering the break.
“Definitely just staying calm, not letting them speed us up and knowing that we have to play our pace and our game,” Wortham said about the key to maintaining composure. “And just trusting each other to play to our ability.”
The Spartans once again started out slow in the second half, committing turnovers and allowing the Panthers to go on a 6-0 run in the first 2:25. Wortham broke the drought with a 3 at 4:00, and the Spartans strung a couple possessions together to go back up by 12 by the end of the third.
The Panthers never went away, cutting it to a four-point game midway through the fourth quarter, but it was Legg again who ended the run with a coast-to-coast layup at 3:35 to regain control before icing it with her long 3.
“Jaz and Ella, they have the ability to either hit shots when we get one for them, or just make a play,” Swanson said. “We needed it against a tough team like that, so yeah, they’re just super talented kids.”
Stanwood is locked into a top eight finish at state. They will face one of No. 11 seed Mountain View/No. 19 Garfield or No. 3 White River/No. 6 Lakeside – depending on how those Saturday results play out – at the Tacoma Dome in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
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