The Edmonds-Woodway Warriors may not have been on many radar screens as a potential threat at the WIAA 3A State Girls Basketball Tournament this week, but that assessment may have been blown away on Wednesday.

The No. 15-seeded Warriors earned a convincing 54-45 victory over the Bethel Braves in a Hardwood Classic loser-out contest played Wednesday morning at the Tacoma Dome.

E-W never trailed in its matchup against the No. 7-seeded Braves, led by as many as 19 points early in the third quarter and held Bethel to well below its scoring average of 58.7 points per game.

Warrior Coach Jon Rasmussen wondered after the game if this will change some observers’ minds about his squad.

“We’re trying to get the respect that I know we can get,” Rasmussen said. “I think we’re starting to turn heads, finally, that we’re a better team than people think.”

E-W had been sporting an overall record of 13-9 going into the first round of play at the Dome on Wednesday. “We’ve been kind of going as the underdog (but) we knew we belonged,” Rasmussen said. “Our record is misleading; we’re a better team than that.”

The Warriors were definitely the better team in their clash with the Braves. E-W jumped out to a 18-4 advantage after the first quarter and led at halftime 27-13 thanks to a balanced scoring attack and an unrelenting defense. Six different Warriors scored in the first half while the Braves were ice cold, shooting just 20 percent (5-for-25) from the field.

“Our defense was outstanding again,” Rasmussen said. “Great play by everyone.”

Bethel’s leading scorer this season, Tiarra Brown, fouled out of the game with 1:36 to go in the third quarter after scoring just eight points, more than 12 points below her per-game scoring average. Rasmussen gave much of the credit of handcuffing Brown to Warrior senior Rebekah Dasalla-Brown.

“(Rebekah’s) a scorer, as you know, but she’s been working hard on her ‘D’ and playing it great,” Rasmussen said. “We held (Brown) to eight points, so that was quite an accomplishment with a girl like that.”

After Edmonds-Woodway had built its 19-point, third-quarter lead, Bethel mounted a comeback attempt by going on a 15-2 run, cutting the E-W lead to six points at 36-30.

“I thought we tired a little,” Rasmussen said of the Bethel run. “I tried to get the girls some rest, but it was win-or-go-home and we didn’t want to go home.”

The Braves’ run was stopped when Warrior senior Ingrid Fosberg made a 3-pointer as the third quarter ended. Fosberg scored 13 points in the contest, primarily by sinking four of five three-point shots after not having much long-range shooting success throughout this, her senior season.

“I’ve been kind of waiting for that to happen all season,” Fosberg said of turning around her shooting woes. “I haven’t been shooting the way I’ve wanted to, and I guess it just came at the right time.”

Fosberg had gone 0-for-8 from the field in the Warriors’ previous outing, a win over Gig Harbor on Feb. 23.

“Ingrid Fosberg came to play today,” Rasmussen noted. “All season she struggled with her 3’s a little and she came out and hit four of five. What a game!”

Dasalla-Good and Adrienne Poling led the Warriors in scoring on Wednesday with 15 points apiece. They contributed to an offensive effort that saw the team be much more patient and deliberate than their usual run-and-gun style.

“We were more selective,” Rasmussen explained. “We want to run, but we were not going to get in a track meet with them. We were going to run when we wanted to run. And that was the key for us. We wanted to control the tempo, and I thought we did a pretty good job.”

Esmeralda Morales led Bethel with 21 points — 17 in the second half — but the sophomore was the only Brave to reach double figures in scoring.

With the victory, the Warriors now enter the double-elimination portion of the Tacoma Dome tourney schedule, starting with a Thursday game against the No. 1-seeded Prairie Falcons; tipoff is set for 10:30 a.m.

With little time before their next game, Rasmussen said he and his coaches will do what they can to prepare the team for the Falcons.

“We’ll (be) watching games here, we’ll go eat dinner and our coaches will be watching some tape,” Rasmussen said. “And we’ll be doing a walk-through at the hotel tonight and probably be walking though in the morning. There’s no rest for the weary.”

Win or lose on Thursday, E-W will play again on Friday, either in a 3A state semifinal game or in the consolation bracket. Either way, the team gets to keep playing under the bright lights of the Tacoma Dome.

“We’ll keep riding the wave right now; it’s quite a ride right now and we’re having a lot of fun,” Rasmussen concluded.

To view the entire WIAA 3A State Girls Basketball Tournament bracket, click http://wiaa.com/ardisplay.aspx?ID=1818.

Prep Girls Basketball: Edmonds-Woodway vs. Bethel, Feb. 27 (WIAA 3A State Girls Basketball Tournament loser-out game at the Tacoma Dome)

Edmonds-Woodway 18 9 12 15 — 54

Bethel Braves  4 9 17 15 — 45

Edmonds-Woodway individual scoring: Adrienne Poling 15, Rebekah Dasalla-Good 15, Ingrid Fosberg 13, Brooke Kearney 5, AJ Martineau 4, Maddie McMahon 2, Jadyen Waram, Kristen Reijonen, Lilly Frunk, Ann Okullu, Keren Seare

Bethel individual scoring: Esmeralda Morales 21, Tiarra Brown 8, Sky Lett 5, Patience Johnson 4, Aryonna Porreca 3, Kyli Pasamante 2, Nakima Miller, Rhianna Davis, Taiya Phillips, Passion Johnson

Records: Edmonds-Woodway 15-9 overall; Bethel 20-5

Edmonds-Woodway next game: versus Prairie; Thursday, Feb. 28; 10:30 a.m. at the Tacoma Dome (WIAA 3A State Girls Basketball quarterfinal game)

— By Doug Petrowski