SHORELINE — Before Wednesday night, Shorewood’s postseason experience was nonexistent. But it sure didn’t show.
The Thunderbirds and their seniorless starting lineup took down Marysville-Pilchuck 69-58 in the opening round of the Northwest District 4A boys basketball playoffs at Shorewood High School to move within one win of qualifying for the state championships.
Not a single player on Shorewood’s youthful roster was around when the T-birds advanced to the playoffs two seasons ago. Shorewood’s current go-to tandem — swingmen Rob Diederichs and Sean Tracey — were still in middle school.
Now the super sophomores are basking in the limelight on a T-birds team that will face Western Conference 4A North Division champion Snohomish at 2 p.m. March 1 at Jackson High School in a winner-to-state contest.
“These are young guys who haven’t been in this position before,” Shorewood coach Jeff Denny said.
The T-birds trailed M-P just once, when Jason Krischano posted up for a basket 45 seconds into the second period to give the Tomahawks an 18-16 edge. Shorewood answered with a 17-2 run capped by consecutive 3-pointers from Tracey, Diederichs and junior guard Joey Steadman.
“Coming into this game I wasn’t sure how they were going to react, though they’ve been in tight games all season long,” Denny said. “They’ve been in pressure situations. They came out and played … like they’d been there before. It amazes me these guys are playing as well as they are.”
M-P tied the score twice in the third period but the T-birds closed out the quarter with a 6-0 spurt highlighted by junior point guard Blake Bernhard’s out-of-nowhere mid-air reverse layup off a Tracey miss.
Shorewood (14-7 overall) sank its first eight free throws of the fourth quarter to extend its lead to 63-52 with 1:06 remaining. After missing seven of his first nine free throw attempts, Diederichs was 5-for-6 from the line in the fourth quarter.
In the first half, Dominic Vandaveer’s outside touch kept the Tommies close. The senior guard scored 16 of M-P’s first 23 points and hit four 3-pointers by halftime.
“We knew that they liked to push the ball a lot, so we had to get back on defense and try to get a hand up when they shoot the threes,” said Diederichs, who led all scorers with 28 points.
Tracey scored 10 of his 15 points in the first half and Bernhard, Michael Stiles and David Prigg each finished with six points.
The winner between Shorewood/Snohomish advances to meet the winner of Mariner/Mount Vernon for the district championship at 7:30 p.m. March 8 at Jackson.
The loser would need to win a pair of loser-out games to claim the tournament’s third and final state berth.
“Right now, we’re sky-high,” Diederichs said. “I don’t honestly think that anyone expected this to happen.”
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