SHORELINE
On the night of their Cascade Conference opener, the King’s High School girls basketball team may have felt like they were starting the season all over again.
Two postponements because of weather and the cancellation of another game left the two-time Class 2A state champions — who are playing in Class 1A this year — with just one game on their record and nearly two weeks of idle time since they played it.
The rust hardly showed Dec. 20 when King’s outscored Archbishop Murphy 21-8 in the first quarter and cruised to a 54-28 home-court victory.
“They were tired of seeing one another for so long in practice, so it was nice to play somebody different,” King’s coach Eric Rasmussen said.
In the Knights’ only game this season since beating Post Falls, Idaho, by 13 points on Dec. 7, they overcame Archbishop Murphy’s early lead with a 14-2 run in the first quarter.
King’s led 32-13 at the half, then dominated the early minutes of the third quarter. The Knights outscored the Wildcats 7-0 and led by 26, then put together another 7-0 run later in the quarter.
“We tell the girls that those are the most important four minutes in the game, at the beginning of the second half, and we came out and stretched the lead out,” Rasmussen said.
Danielle Clauson and Sarah Strand, the only two seniors on the King’s roster, carried much of the scoring load. Clauson scored a game-high 16 points, half of those in the third quarter, and Strand scored nine.
“Dani got into a little foul trouble but she had a great second half, and Sarah hit big shot after big shot when it looked like they might make a little bit of a run,” Rasmussen said. “That’s what you need from your seniors.”
Archbishop Murphy, which lost four of five starters off its Class 2A state tournament team, started three freshmen and two sophomores. Freshman guard Shelby Lyman led the Wildcats with six points.
“It was a very good learning experience for us,” said coach John Barhanovich. “We kind of got out of some things that we wanted to do. We weren’t patient and we panicked a little bit. When that happens, things snowball and you’re really in trouble. We learned that you have to play at a high level when you’re playing a really good team.”
King’s was 2-0 heading into this week’s Surf-n-Slam tournament in San Diego, but Rasmussen says it’s way too soon for anyone to start thinking of another state championship.
“We try not to talk about it too much,” Rasmussen said. “Obviously, Dani and Sarah would like to make one more run at it, but we realize we’ve got a long ways to go with a very young group.”
Kirby Arnold writes for The Herald in Everett.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
