By Quint Turner

The Meadowdale Mavs certainly love their exciting games. Coming right off a one-point victory on a last-second shot, the Mavs hoped lightning would strike twice when Charlie White was fouled with 3.2 seconds left and down by one. White hit the first one, but the second one just barely rolled off to allow the game to go to overtime. Semir Kadiric, who scored 18 points for the Shorewood T-Birds, hit back-to-back field goals to put his team up 61-56, and the Mavs were unable to respond fast enough to come back again.

The first quarter started out pretty slow. Both sides had a good man-to-man defense going on, which prevented most of the easy looks the teams tried to get. Early on, it seemed to be a battle between White and Josh Hawkinson, and between the two they gave their respective teams a great chance to win the game. Both the Mavs and the T-Birds tried to get passes down low to them in the post for easy points, and in the end, Hawkinson had 20 big points to lead his team to the win.

The Mavs went up 8-7 when Matt Hirsch got good penetration in the key and fed Torin Dooley for an easy two. The T-Birds responded when Kadiric hit a mid-range jumper while being fouled, then hit the extra point to put Shorewood up 11-9 with 2:00 to go in the quarter. The quarter ended with the score 14-10 Shorewood.

The second quarter was more back-and-forth action. Taylor Freeman give the T-Birds a six-point lead when he made a nifty spin move to get open for a mid-range jumper, which he sank. The Mavs followed it up when White knocked a T-Bird pass away to Barrett Carlow, and he got the ball to Taylor England for a lay-in to make it 18-14. The T-Birds, however, had some great passing to get their team some open looks for easy buckets. Spencer Linton on the other side faked a three, then drove for a one-handed windmill-esque layup to keep the Mavs only at a 23-19 deficit. Still, the Mavs remained down at the half, 27-21. The teams shot 0 for 12 combined from three-point range, help keeping the game close.

The third was a faster-paced game, which played to the advantage of the T-Birds. They got a huge 6-0 run to put them up 37-26 and helped keep some distance from the Mavericks. But the Mavs wouldn’t go away. Dooley started an 8-0 run after scoring a backdoor lay-in that brought the Mavs to a 41-36 deficit. Unfortunately, the first three of the game was finally hit, and it was Freeman with the trey with only 10 seconds to go in the quarter. The T-Birds took a 44-36 lead into the fourth.

But the Mavs started to hit more and more of their backdoor lay-ins. They took advantage of the tired Hawkinson, and would try to get the ball to White or Brian Feldhaus for baseline lay-ins, and it worked. The Mavs went on a 6-0 run to make it 44-42 Shorewood with 4:44 to go in the game. It seemed like the T-Birds switched to a less aggressive offensive style, as they took a lot of threes (that all missed) early on, helping the Mavs come back. Dooley had a great alley-oop to White over Hawkinson for two more points, and the score was 50-48 T-Birds.

Shorewood did a great job of always scoring in response to the Mavs. Each time you felt the Mavericks finally could get a tie or go up, the T-Birds scored on a tough shot. But the four-point lead wouldn’t be enough. With 33.3 seconds to go, Dooley hit Meadowdale’s first three of the game to cut the lead to 52-51. After Hawkinson hit two free throws, Dooley hit a much longer three to tie the game at 54 apiece with 15 seconds left. The T-Birds had enough time to try to get Kadiric to drive for a lay-in, and he drew a foul. Kadiric made one of the two shots. But the Shorewood’s one-point lead did not last long. With about five seconds remaining, Ben Andrews fouled White. Since it wasn’t a shooting foul, but the Mavs were in the single bonus, it would be a one-and-one for White. He hit the first to tie, but the second just rolled off, and the T-Birds missed a three-pointer at the buzzer. We would go into overtime.

The Mavs had a big problem in OT. They couldn’t make shots or hold onto the ball. They had four turnovers, and went 0-for-5 behind the arc. Kadiric led the T-Birds with four of the six points in the 4:00 OT to give the T-Birds a huge interconference win.

The Mavs fall to 5-7 (3-4 in conference), and their next game is at Mountlake Terrace on Friday, at 7:15 p.m. The T-Birds improve to 9-2 (6-1 in conference), and their next varsity game is Friday the 13th, at home, versus Lynnwood.

Meadowdale scorers: Charlie White 15; Spencer Linton 8; Matt Hirsch 4; Taylor England 4; Brian Feldhaus 16; Torin Dooley 9

Shorewood scorers: Taylor Freeman 13; Chris Giles 2; Gage Carroll 2; Ben Andrews 6; Semir Kadiric 18; Josh Hawkinson 20

Sports correspondent Quint Turner is a sophomore at Meadowdale High School.