King’s girls one step away from state

SHORELINE

The King’s Knights started off strong Wednesday night, Feb. 25, and withheld a third-quarter Port Townsend rally en route to a 51-42 victory.

The 1A Tri-District playoff game extended the Knights’ (10-14) season at least 72 more hours, with a 12:45 p.m. Saturday tipoff against Chimacum in a winner-to-state game.

Consequently, the Redskins’ (12-11) saw their 2008-09 campaign end on the road in round one of the Tri-District tourney.

First-year King’s coach Tressa Berg said she isn’t familiar with Chimacum, but her father-in-law was scouting the Wednesday night game at betweeen Chimacum and Bush High School at the Bush campus.

After King’s jumped out to a 7-4 lead midway through the first quarter, Port Townsend rallied to knot the score at nine before the Knights Makenzie Taylor hit a go-ahead hoop at the buzzer for an 11-9 lead.

The Knight’s carried their momentum into the second frame with a 14-5 scoring run and tight zone defense that forced Redskins’ coach Randy Maag to call a timeout with 1:41 remaining until halftime.

The session appeared to work as the Redskins’ responded by scoring the game’s next five points as King’s took a 25-19 lead into the locker room.

Despite being small in quantity, the King’s student section made up for it with lots of noise and stomping their feet every time the red, white and black clad visitors touched the ball.

Entering the final 16 minutes of play for one of the two teams, King’s expanded its lead into double-digits at 31-19, continuing to apply strict zone defense.

“The girls worked hard putting extra pressure on and increasing the lead, and never gave up tonight. It was a great team effort and a heck of a game overall,” Berg said.

With increasing chants of “de-fense” coming from the King’s section, the Knights went on to outscore Port Townsend 16-13 in the third-quarter.

Leading 41-32 entering the final eight minutes, King’s began the final frame by missing their first few shots, but offensive rebounds kept the score intact.

A 3-pointer by Port Townsend cut the lead to three at 43-40, but the Knights finished the game on an 8-2 run to preserve the postseason victory.

Five-foot-9 junior center Dee Dee Kirton paced the Knight’s with a game-high 17 points, and pulled down 10 rebounds for the game’s only double-double.

“Dee Dee had a heck of a game overall and was vital to our team’s performance tonight,” Berg said. “I was very impressed with the play of Makenzie Taylor and the way she shut down Sophia Wilson tonight. I would consider her (Makenzie) our defensive player of the game.”

Taylor, a 5-foot-8 junior guard, scored 10 points while pulling down five defensive rebounds and limiting Wilson to 12 points.

A victory Saturday afternoon at Mountlake Terrace High School would be the team’s 15th trip to state in the last 16 years.

“We have two veteran seniors and our goal is to get them back to state,” Berg said of Kelli Cutright and Laura Friar “I think the girls are playing well as a team. To get Kelli and Laura back to state would be awesome.”