EVERETT
When in doubt, Archbishop Murphy looked to its senior center against Cedarcrest.
Alyssa Smith responded with seven straight points to close out the second quarter and then scored her team’s first six points to start the third quarter as the Wildcats prevailed 48-40 over the Red Wolves in Cascade Conference girls basketball game Jan. 25 at Archbishop Murphy High School.
Smith finished with a game high 15 points and 13 rebounds, while teammate Shelby Lyman added 14 points.
The Wildcats started to pull away from Cedarcrest late in the second quarter when Smith started asserting her inside game.
A 3-pointer by Claire O’Donnell at the 3:52 mark gave the Red Wolves their first and as it turned out only lead of the game. The Wildcats quickly retook the advantage on a putback basket and a free throw by Smith. She then stole the ball and scored on a layup and then connected on the final shot of the quarter to give Archbishop Murphy a 25-20 halftime lead.
Wildcats head coach John Barhanovich decided the Wildcats would continue to go to Smith in the third quarter.
“At the beginning of the second half, we ran an offense that looks to post her up,” Barhanovich said. “We got three straight (baskets) with that offense in the second half.”
Smith scored eight of Archbishop Murphy’s 15 points in the third quarter as the Wildcats extended their advantage to 40-28. Archbishop Murphy maintained that double digit lead for most of the fourth period and led by as many as 15 points before Cedarcrest closed the gap while going up against the Wildcats’ reserves.
“Tonight was a good win for us,” Smith said. “They’re one of the toughest teams in the league.”
Even though Archbishop Murphy led 15-12 at the end of the first quarter, Barhanovich wasn’t happy with the Wildcats’ offensive execution, especially early in the game. He called an early timeout to address some issues.
“We were impatient to begin the game shooting-wise,” Barhanovich said. “We took a lot of early shots in our offense. But a credit to them. They were able to hang in there, make some shots and took the lead with that 3-pointer.”
Barhanovich told his players that he didn’t have a problem with the shots they were taking early in the game, but he didn’t want them to be taking the first pass and shooting with 25 seconds on the shot clock.
“We can get the same shot 10 seconds later and maybe you’ll get a better shooting motion or whatever,” he said. “But we were a little quick getting shots off, especially it looked like we were shooting a lot of 3s. We need to get the ball inside a little bit and do it that way.”
In addition to running an offense that emphasized Smith, the Wildcats also switched to a 2-3 zone, which created problems for Cedarcrest in the second half.
“That slowed them down a little bit offensively,” Barhanovich said. “I liked what we got out of that. We don’t play zone very much, but it enabled us to slow them down. Then we made more baskets. Transition-wise, Shelby did a nice job of getting to the basket a couple of times and eventually we got the lead up there. It was a nice win for us.”
Archbishop Murphy also dominated the boards.
“We rebounded really well,” Smith said. “We’re the same height, but we’re a little bit stronger than they are.”
Added Barhanovich, “We’ve got some pretty aggressive kids that go get things, especially Smith. We did a pretty good job of getting to the boards and getting second-chance opportunities. Those help as you get late in the game.”
Cedarcrest had some success driving the lane, spinning and getting shots off, Barhanovich said. As a result, he plans to have the Wildcats work on keeping the opposition out of the lane.
“We got some fouls called on us, so we can work on some things defensively,” Barhanovich said.
“It was a good learning point for us – how to overcome a difficult or tough game situation,” Smith added.
The victory marked the start of the second half of the regular season. Archbishop Murphy remains atop the Cascade Conference standing with an 8-0 mark (11-3 overall). Cedarcrest fell to 3-5, 6-8.
“We like where we’re at,” Barhanovich said. “We’ve got to improve every game. Hopefully, next time we play we’ll be better than we were today.”
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