EDMONDS
Talk about a team effort.
On senior night, 12 Edmonds-Woodway players recorded points as the Warriors whipped a cold-shooting Shorewood team 54-37 Feb. 1 at Edmonds-Woodway High School.
No Warriors scored in double-digits. Junior guard Jennifer Singh led the way with nine points.
“Everybody scored,” Edmonds-Woodway coach Wayne Edwards said. “We started our seniors, they did very well. The girls really did everything I asked them to do in practice all week. They shared the ball tonight.”
Shorewood trailed 22-14 after a dismal first half of offense, but got within 26-23 on a layup by Erin Ellersick early in the third quarter.
But Edmonds-Woodway responded quickly with an 8-0 run and the Thunderbirds never got closer than eight points after that.
Junior forward Abby Butler, who scored all eight of her points in the third quarter, kicked off the run with a putback. Andi Schultz and Singh buried 3-pointers and forced Shorewood to take a timeout. Taylor Nephew got a steal, scored a layup, got fouled and hit a free throw to cut it to 34-26, but Edmonds-Woodway closed out the quarter on a 9-5 run.
Despite having an eight-point lead at the half, Edmonds-Woodway could have capitalized more. Butler took at least five 3-pointers in the first half and missed them all.
“The first half they left me open a lot,” Butler said. “When you have an open shot you’re going to take it.”
But in the third quarter, Butler ditched the perimeter game and battled inside for rebounds, putbacks and short jumpers. Edmonds-Woodway finished the game with a 34-21 advantage in rebounding.
“Obviously, in a way, that’s what won the game,” Butler said of the rebounding advantage. “It kept the momentum up for our team.”
Shorewood’s leading scorer, Becky Farden, who came into the game averaging 17.1 points, was held to eight points, which equals her season low.
“Our goal was to take Becky Farden out of her game,” Edwards said. “We wanted to shut her down.”
The T-birds got a game-high 10 points from Erin Ellersick, eight from Nephew and eight from Lynsey Clark but their scoring droughts seemed to coincide with Edmonds-Woodway’s and they couldn’t make up the ground.
The Warriors failed to score for the first 4:13 of the fourth quarter but Shorewood could only muster two points in that stretch and ended up being outscored 11-6 in the final period.
“Our shots weren’t going in,” Shorewood coach Nina Lowe said. “It’s tough.”
Lowe said the T-birds defense kept them in the game but fatigue and the lack of offense caught up with them late in the game.
Shorewood got to the line 12 times in the first half but only made three free throws. The T-birds went 6-for-17 from the line for a miserable 35 percent.
“We were aggressive in getting to the line,” Lowe said. “We just have to take advantage of that. You got to execute at the line.”
Edmonds-Woodway made 12-of-20 free throws for 60 percent.
Edmonds-Woodway (8-7 Western Conference South Division, 10-9 overall) has the league’s third seed to districts sewn up. The Warriors end the regular season at Jackson (14-0, 17-1) on Feb. 6.
“How we played tonight is not half of our potential,” Butler said. “In districts we’re going to come out strong.”
Said Edwards: “We need to be better defensively. We’re starting to play smarter than we’ve played all year.”
Meanwhile, Shorewood fell to 3-12 in the Wesco South and 4-15 overall with a loss to sixth-ranked Jackson on Feb. 4 which officially ended their playoff hopes. The T-birds concluded the season against Meadowdale on Feb. 6.
Mountlake Terrace (4-11) earned the fourth district playoff berth over Shorewood after defeating them twice this season.
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