On Tuesday night, February 24 at 8:15 p.m., the Orcas Lady Vikings played against the Evergreen Lutheran Lady Eagles and beat them on the Lady Eagles’ home turf of Puyallup, 42-35, to a packed house of hooting, screaming fans.
“The young women played great and with that second win, we qualified for state playoffs. We play for tri-district finals on Saturday against La Conner, at Chief Leschi in Puyallup. The Evergreen Lutheran Lady Eagles were brutal to play but we prevailed…we hounded them from baseline to baseline and made their lives miserable,” said Coach Terry Moran-Hodge.
In scoring, Laney Padbury shot 16 points and had 11 rebounds while Stephanie Shaw scored nine points and Halley Parnell had six, Maddy Smith scored three, and Anika Thomas and Sydney Harris each had two. Laney Padbury also had three steals that could also be described as deflections.
“We shot okay from the floor; easy for them to get points into the basket from around the key. Also, we had about 30 fans, and they tried to make a lot of noise. It was great fun to have a small contingent of Orcas fans there, a lot of fun,” commented Coach Moran.
“We were up by four at halftime; so we had a tentative lead most of the game, though we did get behind early and were down by four at the end of the first quarter we rallied and spent more time on our end of the court making up for that. Then during the third quarter we did a great job of controlling the ball from a defensive standpoint. Our shooting was a little off, but they kept hammering at the basket. We earned our berth at state, and we will be one of the top four teams to go.We will have a pretty good seeding either way; it would be nice to win the tri-district as this is the first time the Orcas team has sent a girls’ varsity team to state since 2000. There were a couple of women watching who had played for us…recent alumni and grandparents attended.”
“We definitely handled the ball better that night, and we had 20 steals, which is really a mark of good, aggressive play. The women were totally committed to running down the court to get in place for a powerful defense, and when I see that, I know they’ve really bought into being a defensive pressure team.”
The finals for the tri-district tournament are Saturday, February 28, at Chief Leschi School in Puyallup, Washington. If Orcas wins one or both of their games on Saturday, then they play again Tuesday, March 3 in Spokane, Washington.
