EVERETT
With the pressure on, Archbishop Murphy relied on familiar ingredients to get its Baker’s Dozen.
In the final five minutes, a pinch of Shelby Lyman’s scoring and a dash of Alyssa Smith on the defensive boards sparked the host Wildcats to a gritty 64-56 victory over the Mount Baker Mountaineers Feb. 21 in a Class 2A District 1 girls basketball playoff game.
“Mount Baker came to play and they gave us everything we could handle,” Archbishop Murphy coach John Barhanovich said after his team escaped with its 13th consecutive triumph. “In the playoffs you just try to survive and move on.”
“I was really proud of the kids because they left everything out on the floor,” said Mount Baker coach Brenda Ellis, whose team scrapped back from a 10-point third-quarter deficit to knot the score in the fourth quarter. “We knew Murphy was going to be tough … 14-0 (in the Cascade Conference) is not an accident.”
After trailing by as many as nine points in the first half, and falling behind by double-digits after Archbishop Murphy opened the second half with an 8-0 run, Mount Baker battled back fiercely.
A pull-up jumper by Courtney Buchanan, who led all scorers with 24 points, knotted the score at 46-46 with just over five minutes remaining in the game.
Lyman, who leads the Wildcats’ balanced scoring attack with an average of 11.1 points per game, answered with a 3-pointer from left of the circle with 4:25 to play.
After Smith – who finished with 19 points, 16 rebounds, eight assists and played virtually the entire fourth quarter with four fouls – seized a defensive board, Lyman’s assist to Claire Anderson at the other end of the floor gave the Wildcats a five-point edge.
Archbishop Murphy’s Sam Pettinger (12 points) made a 3-pointer and Lyman (21 points) sank a pair of free throws to make the score 56-46 with 2:27 remaining.
At the two-minute mark the Mountaineers Nicole Buchanan (12 points) dropped in a 3-pointer, but Lyman coolly responded with her third trey of the game to restore the 10-point margin.
Lyman’s 13 fourth-quarter points included a 5-for-6 effort from the free-throw line.
“Shelby hit some big shots, hit some free throws and really came on strong for us,” Barhanovich said of the sophomore guard.
Mount Baker cut the gap to six points inside the final minute, but Smith sealed the triumph when she drew a foul while seizing her 16th rebound. She knocked down both free throws to account for the final margin.
Smith was assessed her fourth foul trying to stop a Buchanan drive in the opening minute of the fourth quarter, but Barhanovich elected to leave the junior post on the floor.
“We decided to just play her. We told her to not to anything silly,” Barhanovich said. “That’s to her credit … she played under control.”
Pettinger, a sophomore forward, drew the tough assignment of trying to keep VanBrocklin– a senior who led the Northwest League with an average of 23.4 points per game – in some semblance of check.
“You debate what to do with (VanBrocklin),” Barhanovich said. “Do you double her so just doesn’t go off? She’s going to score her points, but Sam (Pettinger) did a real good job on her … although there was a stretch where everything she put up was going in.”
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