MILL CREEK — Edmonds-Woodway boys basketball coach Rob McMains had a few simple words of advice for senior Jason Hopkins before Tuesday night’s Northwest District 4A loser-out game against Stanwood.
“I told him before the game he just needed to take over,” McMains said.
The 6-foot-6 center apparently took McMains’ words to heart. Hopkins blocked three shots and scored six of his 11 points in the first quarter to help lead Edmonds-Woodway to a 52-41 victory at Jackson High School.
Stanwood struggled throughout the night with its inside game as players altered their shots in an attempt to avoid Hopkins, who finished the night with five blocked shots.
“When he’s got it going, he’s pretty tough,” McMains said. “He’s a senior and he wants to keep playing and so I just figured we’d give the ball to him.”
The victory sends Edmonds-Woodway (16-7 overall) to another loser-out game against Snohomish at 6 p.m. tonight (Friday, March 5) at Jackson High School. The winner then plays tomorrow at 6 p.m. in a winner-to-state/loser-out contest also at Jackson.
Edmonds-Woodway held Stanwood to no field goals in the first quarter, while jumping to a 16-5 advantage. The Spartans made their first shot from the field at the 6:50 mark of the second quarter.
“We just decided we’re going to come out and attack and lay everything on the line,” McMains said. “We wanted to get out early.”
The Warriors’ defense struggled in the second quarter, allowing Stanwood to attack the middle. The 11-point Edmonds-Woodway lead was cut to three points by halftime.
McMains stressed to his players that they needed to stop Stanwood’s penetration and push the Spartans outside.
“Defensively in the second half, we just did a better job of keeping the ball out of the key,” he said. “We forced them to take perimeter shots for the most part and they weren’t hitting them and we were able to pull away a little bit.”
The Warriors took a 39-28 lead into the fourth quarter and stayed aggressive on the offensive end for the rest of the game.
Senior guard Josh Griffin finished with 11 points and junior guard Huston Conti added nine.
“Offensively we wanted to attack as well,” McMains said. “We didn’t want to get complacent, stall and hold on … we didn’t want to stand around and wait for things to happen. We wanted to make things happen.
“We have four or five guards who can score a lot. When we’re all clicking, we’re pretty tough and tonight we were clicking.”
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