At 6-foot-5, Mountlake Terrace’s Svayjeet Singh can be a force on the basketball court. He showed it on Friday as the senior — along with a balanced scoring attack from his Terrace teammates — propelled the Hawks to a 59-56 victory over the Meadowdale Mavericks in a 3A Wesco League South Conference matchup played at Meadowdale High School.

Singh led all scorers in the game with 15 points — eight in the crucial third quarter — and had a momentum-building block at the end of that third quarter to help lead the Hawks to the win.

Terrace trailed 41-34 near the midpoint of the third before closing out the quarter on a 9-2 run that included a Singh steal and layin and a swat of a Marley Miller shot attempt in the lane as the quarter came to an end.

Then in the fourth, the Hawks built up a 59-50 advantage in the game’s final minute before holding off a late comeback attempt by the Mavericks that ended with a Khalil Botley miss of a 3-point attempt with 4.8 seconds to go. With the Meadowdale last-minute surge fizzling out, Terrace was able to escape with the win.

After the game, Singh was relieved that his team had secured the victory but was also tempered in his enthusiasm.

“We won, but you saw how we were up by nine (59-50 with :40.0 to go),” Singh said. “And this has kind of been a trend for us in the last few games — towards the end of the game we kind of let them back into the game.”

“There’s always work to do but we cannot not celebrate the win … we still get to be happy that we did it,” Singh added. “But we also got to look and see what we did wrong so we can improve for next time.”

Two other Hawks reached double-figure scoring on Friday: senior Rayshaun Connor and freshman Alex Mkrtychyan each contributed 13 points in the Terrace win.

Meadowdale Coach Roger O’Neill said the experience of Singh and Connor were key reasons for his squad to fall to Mountlake Terrace (2-1 in 3A Wesco League South Conference play, 5-2 overall) on Friday.

“Two guys returning for them, played a ton of really high-level varsity basketball for a couple of years — Rayshaun (Connor) and Svayjeet (Singh) — they made a lot of plays tonight.,” O’Neill said. 

The loss dropped the Mavericks to 3-4 overall and 0-2 in 3A Wesco League South Conference play this season. And while O’Neill expressed some disappointment with how the first third of the 2024-25 season has gone, he also said his squad can still achieve goals they have set out for themselves this year.

“I’m happy with our guys’ effort tonight and the way they competed,” O’Neill said. “But there’s tons of cleanup offensively. I loved the way the ball moved but it wasn’t clean and we need to execute better in close games. But I’m super pleased with the energy the guys were giving and how we’re competing. And if that continues and we start cleaning up things offensively, I think we’re going to be right where we want to be about a month from now.”

The Mountlake Terrace – Meadowdale boys game was the first of a boys/girls doubleheader played at Meadowdale High School on Friday. In the girls matchup, the Meadowdale Mavericks defeated the Mountlake Terrace Hawks 59-35.

Prep Boys Basketball: Mountlake Terrace at Meadowdale, Dec. 20

Terrace 13 11 19 16 – 59

Meadowdale   8 21 14 13 – 56

Mountlake Terrace individual scoring: Svayjeet Singh 15, Rayshaun Connor 13, Alex Mkrtychyan 13, Oliver Shaw-Jones 8, Anthony Fuentes 6, Jordan Wilson 4, Brody Myers-Little, Hunter Nuckols

Meadowdale individual scoring: Noah Million 18, Natnael Ghirmay 10, Khalil Botley 10, Adam Desta 6, Marley Miller 5, Nolan Lee 5, Orian Ezeonwuka 2, Payton Hernandez, Jordan Berhe

Records: Mountlake Terrace 2-1 in 3A Wesco League South Conference, 5-2 overall; Meadowdale 0-2 in 3A Wesco League South Conference, 3-4 overall

Mountlake Terrace next game: versus Inglemoor; Saturday, Dec. 21; 3:30 p.m. at Inglemoor High School

Meadowdale next game: versus Everett; Monday, Dec. 23; 6 p.m,. at Meadowdale High School

— By Doug Petrowski