On Saturday, Feb. 28, the Orcas Lady Vikings basketball team played and beat the La Conner Lady Braves 44-39 in a stunner that put the Lady Vikings in the number one seed position for playoffs at state.
Their victory will allow them to take part in the state playoffs on Wednesday, March 4 in Spokane, Wash. The Lady Vikings’ first opponent in the Spokane Arena will be the White Pass Lady Panthers. Game time is 4 p.m.
“On Saturday, we came out onto the court with a little less than our usual energy and we were down by 14 points by halftime,” Coach Terry Moran-Hodge said. “The Lady Braves were shooting with way more accuracy than we were early on, but we didn’t let that stop us. We play a deep bench and at the start of the third quarter, the La Conner team couldn’t decide where to cover us. All of our team members can score, and that’s just what we did. Every single one of our starters … Stephanie Shaw, Anika Thomas, Sydney Harris, Halley Parnell, Lanie Padbury, Maddy Smith, Alison O’Toole … took turns at the basket and we just systematically wore down the score. By the fourth quarter, as the fouling became hot and heavy, we capitalized at our turns on the free throw line there as well, and averaged as a team 10/14 free throws and that earned extra points.
“At the start of the fourth quarter we were only down by eight points, which is far more manageable than 14. We just kept chipping away and playing great defense and during the second half we only gave up one field goal in the third and fourth quarters. The rest of the points the other team got were from free throws. Defensively, La Conner just couldn’t get the ball down the court even on a half press. Alison O’Toole had five steals and that was huge for us.”
The Lady Vikings came roaring back in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Lady Braves 20-7. Despite strong work done by La Conner team members Kelsey Kennedy and Megan Raymond, each of whom scored ten points for the Lady Braves,
“All six of our players scored,” said Moran-Hodge, “And this prevented the other team from using their defense to flock and cover just one team member; La Conner had their hands full with us. We were just relentless.”
Midway through the fourth quarter, Sydney Harris put the Orcas team up by two points to finally take the lead. After that, the Lady Vikings maintained their focus and the scoring pressure and won to take the top position in the tri-district tournament.
“We had a great celebration,” Moran-Hodge said. “There is a tradition of cutting down the field goal net after an important competition and to my happiness, that tradition was honored at this event. So everyone took a turn at cutting a piece of the twine off the net. It was a great experience and I am very glad the young women had the opportunity to do it.”
