LAKEWOOD – Prior to Monday night’s game, Lakewood basketball Coach Chris Walster said the girls need to win two of their next three games to solidify a spot in post-season.

That will be tougher to do now, as the Cougars lost to the Borderites of Blaine 42-34. The girls go on the road Friday to play Lynden Christian, one of the top girls teams in the state at any classification, Walster said.

That doesn’t mean Lakewood, 7-12, still can’t make the playoffs. Going into last night, they were ninth out of the 12 teams that continue to play after the end of the regular season. If they would have won two of the three, he was hoping they might move up to the eighth spot and actually get to host a game.

But now, it looks like they might have to win next Monday just to capture one of the final seeds. That is Senior Night, and they will be hosting Sedro-Woolley.

Against Blaine, Lakewood’s offense never got rolling. They struggled against Blaine’s bigger and taller girls inside, so they fell in love with settling for outside shots that just didn’t fall.

The Cougars took a 6-3 lead after a drive by Jelly Perry, two free throws by Emily Senyitko and a steal and layup by junior Riley Molloy. It was their only lead of the game.

They went on a scoring drought of about seven minutes until Molloy grabbed an offensive rebound and scored so they would only trail 10-8 with 6:10 left in the half. But the Borderites continued to dominate the boards, and Lakewood went on another long scoring drought until Senyitko hit a 3 to make it 19-11 at halftime.

Lakewood played much better offensively in the second half, scoring 23 points, but it was too little too late as Blaine scored 23 also.

Senyitko led the losing team with 13 points, followed by Perry and Molloy with 10 each. Junior Nicole Miller hit a free throw for the team’s only other point.

Josie Deming, a 6-foot senior, led the winners with 13. Brynn Hallberg had 11, and Alexis Hallberg 10.