MARYSVILLE — It just wasn’t Marysville Getchell’s night when they looked for their first-ever win as they hosted undefeated Mountlake Terrace and its traveling entourage of student fans on Dec. 16.
The Hawks wasted no time in maintaining their perfect record, overpowering the Chargers to a 77-17 win.
“I don’t think we came in with a lot of confidence,” said Charger sophomore guard Omar Sakin-Romulus, who finished with four points on the night. “We were told before the game that this was the best team in the league, so I think we got down on ourselves.”
Mountlake Terrace’s 6-foot-7 senior post Ryan Shannon and 6-foot-7 sophomore post Greg Bowman anchored MLT’s man-to-man defense, blocking layups left and right and zipping the ball out to their runners on the way to a 10-0 lead midway through the first quarter.
Getchell tried to regroup with a timeout, down 14-0, less than a minute later.
The Hawks outmuscled the Chargers on rebounds and swarmed the Getchell guards looking to pass into the key. MLT jumped in front of Getchell’s passes on the perimeter, taking the ball the other way for fast break layup after fast break layup.
The Chargers spent another timeout, down 28-0 with a minute left in the opening quarter.
Total MLT domination on the boards put Getchell on their heels after every one-shot possession.
Getchell took another timeout down 34-2 with 5:05 to go in the half. They stepped up to keep the Hawks on the perimeter, but Shannon and Bowman snagged rebound after rebound and made the much shorter Chargers pay for their lack of size beneath the basket.
Hawk sophomore post Loren Lacasse put a statement on the first half with a buzzer-beating put-back basket off of a rebound to put his team up 48-7 as time expired.
The Chargers showed no signs of retreat or surrender in the second half. They stayed tough and drove to the basket on every trip down the floor and fought back on rebounds to challenge Shannon, Bowman and Lacasse. Getchell sophomore guard Nathen Grimm, who led the Chargers in scoring with seven points, stole the ball from MLT junior guard Jesse Zerom and took it the rest of the way for a layup.
The Hawks led 58-11 after three quarters.
Getchell took on a zone defensive approach to keep MLT’s big men out of the paint, but senior guard Eric Moisant and his Hawks had no qualms about knocking drilling threes and dooming the Chargers to a 77-17 loss.
“We practice tough and work hard,” Sakin-Romulus said. “It’s all we can do. Whether we’re down 25 or 100, we want to do what Coach tells us and keep competing.”
