Hawks steal way past Shorewood

SHORELINE

Ryan Sells and his Mountlake Terrace teammates were fired up and ready to go against Shorewood Saturday, Dec. 13.

The 6-2 senior forward scored 20 of his game-high 26 points in the first half as the Hawks whipped the Thunderbirds 69-29 on their home court.

The Hawks went on a 19-0 run in the first half that put them up 28-5 and delivered a crushing blow to Shorewood. Sells had eight points and a pair of 3-pointers during the run that was also fueled by steals. Sells finished the night with five steals while the Hawks had 18 as a team.

“We did a great job pushing the ball up court and getting those steals,” Sells said. “It was great team defense again.”

The Hawks, who beat Kamiak 68-42 the night before, held Shorewood to 12 points in the second half.

Mountlake Terrace improved to 3-0 in the Western Conference South Division and overall, while Shorewood fell to 0-3 in the division and 1-3 overall.

The Hawks shot 67 percent from the field in the first quarter and went on to shoot 54 percent (28-for-52) for the game.

Senior forward Paul Clingan made his first three shots, scored the Hawks’ first 11 points and finished with 17.

Clingan told coach Nalin Sood he had been struggling to knock down his shots, despite good fundamentals. All Sood could tell him was to keep shooting and it paid off against the T-birds.

The Hawks’ senior posts, 6-7 Karsten Strieby, and 6-8 Tyler Stracener, combined for only three points but the Hawks’ forwards and guards dominated offensively.

“I’m just really impressed with the unselfishness of this basketball team,” Sood said. “They do a good job right now of just having a radar of where the open guy is.”

Terrace also out rebounded Shorewood 28-18 and shot 50 percent (5-of-10) from the line.

Meanwhile, Shorewood shot 28 percent from the field (9-of-32) and 53 percent from the line (8-of-15).

“We started out bad and it went down hill from there,” said senior Tomas Sanchez, who led Shorewood with 11 points.

“Mental breakdowns,” added junior point guard Micah Mitchell as to the T-birds’ woes.

The T-birds came out with a lot of energy and won their opener 51-50 over a Lake Stevens team that was picked by the Wesco North coaches to finish third in the North. But the team is still learning the offense and defense taught by new coach Marv Morris.

“We’re getting it,” Sanchez said. “These first few games are going to be rough because we’re learning it. Basically, the next time we play all these teams we should be better.”