SHORELINE — Meadowdale boys basketball coach Chad McGuire didn’t hesitate to pronounce his team primed for another lengthy playoff run after the Mavericks bounced Shorecrest 56-39 last week to cap off a remarkable regular season.
The fourth-ranked Mavericks (17-1 league, 18-2 overall) clinched their postseason berth weeks ago and are looking to follow up their Western Conference South Division championship with a second straight Northwest District 3A title.
“Our kids are ready,” McGuire said. “They love playing in big games and we’re going to get some coming up.”
With two other top-10 teams in the bracket, repeating last year’s district championship will be no easy task for the second-seeded Mavericks, who were scheduled to open the tournament by hosting seventh-seeded Ferndale (6-8, 9-11) last night.
Also on Meadowdale’s half of the draw is second-ranked Bellingham, a fourth-place finisher at last year’s state tournament. Eighth-ranked Squalicum is favored to survive the top half of the draw.
Bellingham and Squalicum shared the Northwest 3A League title with matching 13-1 records.
“It’s going to be a tough district to come out of,” McGuire said. “Bellingham and Squalicum are two of the best teams in the state. They’re all very solid teams up there.”
To earn one of the three state tournament berths up for grabs — up from two berths last season — McGuire figures the Mavericks will have to continue to out-play their competition in two specific areas.
“Our defensive intensity and rebounding have carried us all season long,” he said. “For us to go up there and win games, we have to play good defense and we have to limit the other teams to one shot. If we can do that, we’ve got enough good basketball players that we’re going to score.”
That theory played out in Meadowdale’s win over Shorecrest. After struggling to find their flow on offense during a lackluster first half, the Mavericks pulled away in the third quarter by cranking up the defensive pressure and crashing the boards.
While the Scots missed their first seven field goal attempts of the second half, five different scorers helped Meadowdale rattle off 14 straight points, paving the way to a 56-39 victory Feb. 13 at Shorecrest High School.
Junior guard Jake Linton scored a game-high 12 points on 4-for-7 shooting from 3-point range and Larod Lover added 11 points for the Mavericks, who trailed the Scots by a point twice in the second quarter.
“Their defense disrupted what we wanted to do offensively in the first half,” McGuire said. “The difference between the first and the second half was rebounding. We’ve been emphasizing to our team that we’ve got to be able to outrebound our opponents if we want to win. It allows us to run, it allows us to keep teams to one shot.”
Meadowdale finished off the regular season by winning five games in a row after suffering its lone league loss to Shorewood on Jan. 30. Two more victories to open Northwest Districts would ensure the Mavericks a return trip to next month’s state championships.
“You always want to get down to the Tacoma Dome and see what happens,” McGuire said. “That’s our goal and we’ll know in the next couple weeks. But it’s a tough district.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
