ARLINGTON – The Eagles girls basketball team is known for its defense.
But against the Mavericks of Meadowdale Tuesday night they were pretty offensive. Especially in the third quarter, when Arlington made six 3’s by six different players to blow the game wide open, winning 55-25.
Both teams opened the game with full-court presses, and each had trouble scoring in the easy going.
Arlington sophomore guard Sierra Scheppele hit a 3 early on and then neither team scored for about four minutes. Scheppele hit two more 3’s to give the home team a 14-3 lead after one period.
The defenses continued to dominate in the second quarter, with the Eagles scoring just five points, while the visitors tallied four. The freshman trio of Jordan Bartlow, Josie Stupey and Hailey Hiatt ran all over the court double-teaming the ball, frustrating the Meadowdale ball-handlers. The Mavericks didn’t score for six minutes in that second period.
After leading 19-7 at intermission, Arlington went on a terror scoring 23 points in the third quarter to take a 42-15 lead. The Eagles gambling defense created one turnover after another, and they just could not miss from the outside. And, again, the Mavericks could not score for about the first half of the quarter.
Senior forward Kelsey Mellick hit a 3, scored three free throws and scored on a putback shot, just in that quarter.
The other five players to score beyond the arc that quarter were: another one from Scheppele, and one each from sophomores Georgia Arnold, Allison DeBerry, senior Maciee Delaney and Hiatt.
Scheppele led the Eagles with 15 followed by Hiatt with 9, Mellick with 8, DeBerry, Arnold and Peytown Brown with 5 apiece, Delaney and Stupey with 3 each and MacKenzie Fischer with 2.
“(We) decided to become more aggressive offensively and started driving and getting open 3s and shots started falling,” Arlington assistant coach Lauryn Perrigo said.
The Eagles (13-9) advance to face Lynnwood in a loser-out game Friday at Mountlake Terrace High School.
In the only other game last night involving a local team, the Lakewood boys basketball team was knocked out of the playoffs losing to Mountlake Terrace 56-39.
Lakewood coach Anthony Wiederkehr said the Cougars had hoped to do better in the playoffs, but hit a cold streak shooting the ball. Still, it was the best season for a Lakewood team in a decade.
“This was a bad time to shoot poorly. We kind of had our hot streak, and it couldn’t go for one more week,” he said.
Lakewood, which went winless in conference play two seasons ago, ended its season 16-7. The Cougars remain in search of their first state tournament berth in school history.
Alex Jensen finished with 13 points to lead Lakewood.
