ARLINGTON — It’s a topsy turvy league out there, as M-P boys basketball can attest.
After taking a 16-6 first-quarter lead, the Tomahawks watched that lead fall a couple of points at a time to a surging Arlington team.
With a 51-49 come-from-behind win over Marysville-Pilchuck Jan. 24, Arlington showed anybody can beat anybody in Wesco North.
Though the Tomahawks led early, Arlington outscored Marysville in each quarter afterwards. While Tomahawk post Spencer Elwell’s height and presence in the paint has been an asset all season long, Arlington drove the ball against him, forcing him into foul trouble and extracting his fifth foul midway through the fourth quarter.
Arlington guard Cole Carpenter, a presence in all four quarters of the game, helped seal the deal for Arlington. The Eagles, who hadn’t led since it was 4-3 in the first quarter, retook the lead late in the third quarter with with a three-pointer from Carpenter and the go-ahead score from Lucas Larson. M-P battled back in the fourth quarter, retaking the lead on a trey from Troy Toler and extended the lead by two on a potential three-point play from Nick Soriano. The tight fourth-quarter battle featured three ties and three lead changes. An Arlington basket cut the M-P lead to one.
Perfect free-throw shooting from that point on kept the tension in the gym at a fevered pitch as M-P guard Ryan Lanphere hit a pair of free throws and teammate Tyler Holm was 4-for-4 down the stretch. But Larson retied the game after Holm’s first pair of baskets and Carpenter matched Holm’s second pair with two free throws of his own to tie it up again, 49-49.
With 35 seconds left, Arlington had the ball and took time off the clock passing around their basket. With less than three seconds on the clock, Carpenter drove to the basket, scoring on a lay-in.
M-P got the ball with 1.2 seconds left on the clock, trying valiantly to force overtime.
The Tomahawks threw in to half court, a pass deflected out of bounds near the Marysville bench, this time with 0.4 seconds left. M-P forward Nick Forsythe threw in toward the hoop, looking for an alley oop to Holm, but the pass was low and the buzzer sounded.
“Man, it was a tough game. Two good teams battling it out down the wire,” said M-P coach Bary Gould. “The league is even, very very balanced.”
The teams meet again Jan. 30 and Gould already knows what he’d like to do differently this time.
“Hopefully, win,” he said.
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