EDMONDS
Forty-five seconds into a Feb. 13 Wesco battle against the Snohomish Panthers, Edmonds-Woodway scored the game’s first points.
About 45 minutes later, the season was over for the Warriors after losing 70-52 in a loser-out league contest.
E-W finished the 2008-09 campaign with a 5-14 WesCo record, 6-15 overall.
“They (Snohomish) played exactly as I thought they would tonight. There weren’t any surprises in the game plan. It just came down to who could execute better, and they proved they could tonight,” E-W coach Todd Rubin said.
After E-W’s Jeff Wilson turned a steal into a 2-0 advantage for the hosts, Snohomish countered with a 12-0 run and never looked back.
Snohomish senior guard Reed Pecha scored eight of the Panthers’ first 10 points en route to a game-high 20 point performance.
Wilson paced the Warriors with 19 and 6-foot-6 fellow senior Kenan Polovina added 13 for the only two E-W players to reach double digits.
One interesting statistic of note in the Friday the 13th game was that neither team trekked to the free-throw line in the first or third quarters.
Snohomish more than doubled the amount of shots from the charity stripe as the Panthers sank 14-of-22 while the Warriors drained 7-of-10.
“Wow, I didn’t realize that we only took two free throws in the first half,” E-W coach
Rubin said after being informed of the stats afterward.
Polovina drained the first two opportunities at the stripe with one minute and 29 seconds remaining until intermission.
“Both teams played really aggressive and I think as far as offensive rebounds go, we probably had more than them,” Rubin said. “They (Snohomish) did a good job of going back door and running around our screens.
After jumping out to a 15-9 first-quarter advantage, Snohomish pushed its lead to double digits at 28-15. The Warriors countered with a 7-0 run behind the five points of Wilson, and the lead was back to six points at 28-22.
But, Snohomish finished the first half with four unanswered points for a 32-22 lead as the teams headed into the locker room.
E-W showed more urgency in the third quarter after trailing by a dozen, but the closest the Warriors’ would come to knotting the score came after a 3-pointer by Wilson to make it a 38-33 ballgame.
Snohomish coach Ken Bone credited reserve Brian Wolfe and classmate Pecha, who combined to score 37 of the team’s 70 points (17 and 20, respectively).
“He (Wolfe) and Pecha really sparked our offense tonight,” Bone said. “I felt like he would come off the bench to be an asset for us, and he filled that role quite well.
Wolfe, a 6-foot-4 guard, is returning to the hardwood after focusing on a baseball career. Bone said the talented two-sport star is hoping to attend the University of Washington on a baseball scholarship.
With a postseason berth on the line, the Warriors played the first half with very little intensity.
“I didn’t think we had any sense of urgency in the first half, but we definitely did in the second,” Rubin said. We were running around a lot more and scrapping for the ball.”
Snohomish faces geographical rival Lake Stevens Feb. 17 on the road at 7:30 p.m.
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