ARLINGTON

For most teams, a 22-point win in the semifinal round of the playoffs would be a cause for some celebration.

And then there’s the undefeated and top-ranked Meadowdale girls basketball team.

On a night when they got Eryn Jones back, the Mavericks (23-0) didn’t look sharp but still managed to defeat Mount Vernon 57-35 in a Class 3A District 1 semifinal Feb. 22 at Arlington High School.

“Our intensity was low today, I don’t know why. I thought we could have played a lot better than we did,” Meadowdale head coach Dan Taylor said. “(The team) was kind of inconsistent when it came to the intensity level.”

Meadowdale advances to the district final — a winner-to-state game — to face Ferndale, a 60-47 winner over Everett, Feb. 28, the results of which were not available for this edition of The Enterprise.

The Mavericks were ranked No. 1 in the state in Class 3A in the final WashingtonPreps.com poll, but looked anything but in the early minutes Thursday. The Bulldogs started fast against Meadowdale, scoring the first points for an early lead, and then played an aggressive up-tempo game throughout the first two quarters.

“It was pretty tough, they came out with strong intensity,” Mavericks junior Alli Streit said of Mount Vernon in the first half. “We didn’t come as out as good as we should have.”

The Bulldogs’ Andrea Fine scored the first three points of the game — sinking a lay-up after stealing the ball and then completing the three-point play from the free-throw line — before Marelle Moehrle put the Mavericks in the lead.

Moehrle, who had a game-high 22 points, made a tying 3-pointer and then dropped in a lay-in two possessions later to put Meadowdale ahead 5-3 — a lead they wouldn’t give up despite playing inconsistently.

“We knew we could have done better. The level of intensity we wanted to keep consistent throughout (wasn’t there),” Taylor said. “We had spurts, a couple minutes here, but not here, and then a couple minutes, and so on.”

One of those up periods came in the closing minutes of the first half, when Streit started a 13-2 Mavericks run by taking a pass from Jones on a fast break and then dropping in a lay-in. A flurry of steals and baskets followed, with Jones scoring four points and Moehrle adding six to put Meadowdale ahead 30-17 at the half.

Jones, who missed the past two games with a knee injury, finished with 13 points but started slow, with her first points from the field coming with 1:45 to play in the first quarter.

“She’s working her way back in, which is fine,” Taylor said about the junior. “But I think that once she feels the rhythm and gets back in the flow she’ll be all right.”

Streit agreed with her coach’s assessment about the impact of Jones’ return.

“It’s such a joy to have her back,” Streit said. “She develops our offense, tells us what to do. She was getting used to (playing again) at first, but then she got back into her style.”

Mount Vernon paid a price for playing such an up-tempo first half as after the intermission the Bulldogs looked fatigued. Meanwhile, Meadowdale built on its lead, which hit 20 points midway through the fourth period when Hanna Fjortoft grabbed a rebound and took the ball end-to-end to put the Mavericks ahead 51-31.

Scott Whitmore writes for The Herald in Everett.