King’s holds Wildcats at bay

EVERETT — King’s guard Skylar Barrett scored only three points against Archbishop Murphy Jan. 6, but those three points were huge.

The Wildcats had whittled King’s 10-point second-half lead down to one point, 31-30, after a Joey Jensen layup with 6:35 to play.

That’s when Barrett answered with a 3-pointer from the right corner to throw off Archbishop Murphy’s momentum.

Despite the efforts of Archbishop Murphy’s Alex Ungs, who scored all seven of his points in the fourth quarter to keep the score close, King’s prevailed.

The Knights ended the game on a 9-0 run and won 47-35.

King’s took the lead for good in the first quarter but the Wildcats hung close because of their tenacious defense, physical play and frenetic pace.

After the Wildcats chipped away at the lead and embarked on a 9-0 run, the Knights settled down the last six-plus minutes.

King’s showed patience on one possession in particular that resulted in an easy inside basket by Andrew Lutton with 2:09 left. The bucket gave the Knights a seven-point lead.

“We got some crucial rebounds and Skylar Barrett hit a huge three. We had to just gear down and play our own game,” said senior forward Carson Bowlin, who scored eight points.

King’s, ranked 10th in Class 2A by WashingtonPreps.com, improved to 3-0 in Cascade Conference play and 10-1 overall with the win. Archbishop Murphy fell to 0-2 in the conference and 2-6 overall.

Knights head coach Marv Morris was happy with the win but saw room for improvement in several areas.

“I thought we played OK except we did not handle the physical play real well,” Morris said. “They push a lot and they’re aggressive physically and I thought we need some work on that.”

On offense, the Knights sometimes fired up shots too quickly.

“A little too eager on offense was our problem,” Morris said. “I think we allowed ourselves to play their rush-rush a little bit … it’s not our game.”

Morris was pleased with the Knights defense, which is holding teams to an average of about 40 points per game. The Knights plugged up the middle and took seven charging fouls.

“We had to stand in and take those charges when they lowered their heads,” Bowlin said.

Senior point guard Jared Madrazo led the Knights with 14 points while junior post Charlie Enquist scored 13.

Senior guard Alex Burns led the Wildcats with 10 points.

To counteract the Knights’size advantage, Archbishop Murphy head coach Jerry Zander wanted to use his team’s depth to force an up-tempo game.

“We have a lot of guys who can contribute on our team,” Zander said. “We can play nine or 10 guys and feel confident that all those guys can help us.”

“I think it was a pretty physical game and I think a pretty emotional game. It felt like it was 100 degrees in this gym,” Zander said. “I was trying to rotate guys in, keep them fresh.”

The Wildcats shot 2-for-16 from behind the 3-point line including a dreadful 1-for-11 in the first half.

“That’s not something we want to rely on,” Zander said. “I thought (in) our half-court offense we really struggled. The big guy in the middle (Enquist), you know, got in our heads a little bit in that we were a little scared to go in there, to take shots over him.”

The Wildcats have started league play with losses to Lakewood and King’s, the teams expected to be tops in league this year. Zander is hopeful the Wildcats, with all their athletes back from football, will improve and beat the teams they need to get a good seed at districts.