The emotional roller coaster ride that has been the Edmonds-Woodway High School girls’ basketball season continued Thursday night at the Tacoma Dome. The Warriors fell behind by big margins early on in their Hardwood Classic opening game against the Kamiakin Braves, then mounted a strong comeback, even taking leads twice late in the fourth quarter. But in the end, E-W eventually ran out of steam and stopped short of a victory.

The Warriors lost to the Braves 56-54 in a WIAA 3A Girls State Basketball Tournament quarterfinal Thursday in Tacoma. E-W will next face the Lincoln Abes in a consolation round match-up at the Tacoma Dome on Friday, March 4, at 2 p.m. With a victory, Edmonds-Woodway would play the winner of Friday’s Mt. Spokane/Prairie game for fourth place in the tournament on Saturday.

After winning four straight loser-out games just to get into the Hardwood Classic, the close loss to Kamiakin Thursday was difficult, said E-W Coach Rebekah Wells. “It’s tough; definitely it’s a tough one, because we so had it,” she said.

It was Kamiakin that had it early on, using a 17-0 run over four minutes of the first quarter to jump out to a 26-6 lead by the end of the period.

“I think it’s just that we weren’t as focused as they were to start,” Wells said.

After the Braves’ Kiley Larsen opened the second quarter with a three-pointer and extended Kamiakin’s lead to 29-6, the Warriors turned the game around. E-W cut the margin to 33-22 at halftime with a 16-4 run over 7:32 of the second quarter, then tied the game up for the first time with 55 seconds to go in the third quarter on a Courtney Simpson lay-in.

“The comeback was great,” Wells said. “I think a lot of it was getting points from a lot of different girls and not just Missy (Peterson) or Mady (Burdett), which is huge. We have girls coming off the bench that scored plenty for us tonight.”

Freshman Adrienne Poling was the big spark among the E-W reserves, going 5-for-6 from the floor, 2-for-2 from the foul line, and leading the team in scoring with 12 points. A Poling three-pointer with 4:48 to go in the game cut the Braves’ lead at the time to 49-47; less than a minute later E-W took its first lead of the game at 50-49 with a three-pointer by Burdett.

After Kamiakin’s Alexa Hazel converted one of two free throws to tie the game 50-50 with 3:24 to go, a Maddie Tudor lay-in gave Edmonds-Woodway a 52-50 lead less than a minute later. But that would be the last time E-W would have an advantage as the Braves outscored the Warriors 6-2 in the final two minutes to earn the win.

Kamiakin’s Oumou Toure, a 5-10 freshman guard, led all scorers with 22 points, led all rebounders with 10 boards, and grabbed a game-high five steals.

Wells hopes the disappointing loss on Thursday can be a springboard to a better team effort in their consolation round game. “I think we take the frustration that they have at the end of (Thursday’s) game, seeing that it was so close and within grasp, and take that and put it into the energy towards (Friday),” Wells said.

You can view the lineup of 3A Girls Hardwood Classic games on Friday, and the entire tournament bracket here.

Prep Girls Basketball: Edmonds-Woodway vs. Kamiakin, WIAA 3A Girls State Basketball Tournament quarterfinal game, March 3

Edmonds-Woodway 6 16 16 16 — 54
Kamiakin 26 7 7 16 — 56

Edmonds-Woodway scoring: Adrienne Poling 12, Missy Peterson 11, Maddie Tudor 9, Mady Burdett 9, Marivel Ortega 7, Courtney Simpson 4, Ingrid Fosberg 2, Ally Burdett, Elie Shull
Kamiakin scoring: Oumou Toure 22, Kiley Larsen 9, Alexa Hazel 6, Symone Brown 6, Rylie Clark 4, Jayden Williams 4, Kendyl Holle 3, Chanceler Williams 2, Lexi Brown

Records: Edmonds-Woodway 16-11; Kamiakin 15-10

Edmonds-Woodway next game: versus Lincoln, Friday, March 4, 2 p.m. at the Tacoma Dome (WIAA 3A Girls State Basketball Tournament consolation round game)

— By Doug Petrowski