In an early-season test for both teams, the Mountlake Terrace Hawks and Arlington Eagles fought down to the final buzzer of their Wesco League non-conference matchup on Tuesday. But with a strong second half at both ends of the court, it was the Hawks who walked away with a memorable last-second victory.

Mountlake Terrace outscored Arlington 25-11 in the final 12:33 to come from behind and snatch a 47-46 victory in a game played at Mountlake Terrace High School.

The Hawks trailed by 13 points, 35-22, near the midpoint of the third quarter on Tuesday. However, they ended the quarter on a 11-2 run and then overtook the Eagles with a 13-9 scoring advantage in the final quarter to win the contest.

“We went on a little run there,” said Hawk’s starting freshman Anthony Fuentes.

Terrace’s second-half push ended dramatically as the game’s outcome was in doubt until the final buzzer.

With the score knotted at 46-46, Terrace senior Rayshaun Connor scored his final point of the contest by converting one of two free throw attempts with 2.9 seconds left in the game to give the Hawks the one-point advantage. 

“Ah, I missed the first one; I should have made it,” Connor said of his final two attempts from the line. “But I’m happy that I made it (the second attempt) and we won. But we grinded up to that point. It took a lot of work.” 

Arlington, now trailing 47-46, had one final possession to close out the contest and steal the victory. But Leyton Martin’s running 3-point shot attempt at the final buzzer missed and Terrace escaped with the win.

The game featured eight ties and five lead changes, but it will be the final minute that will be most remembered. 

Terrace trailed in that final minute before junior Shan Shah sunk a long three-pointer with 54.5 seconds to go, giving the Hawks a 45-44 lead. Fuentes added a free throw with 29.1 seconds to go to push the Terrace lead to 46-44, but it was short lived as Martin tied the game at 46-46 with a drive to the bucket with 9.5 seconds to go.

After a couple Terrace timeouts, Connor took an inbounds pass near the Arlington basket, drove the length of the court and was then fouled by Kooy to set up his game-winning free throw in the final :02.9.

Connor, in addition to being the designated ball handler for the Hawks in the game’s final seconds, was assigned with trying to slow down Martin, the Eagles’ leading scorer and a college basketball prospect, throughout the game. “He’s a very good player; very strong going down hill. You’ve got to watch his shot. It took a lot to keep him low scoring,” Connor said.

Martin led all scorers on Tuesday with 20 points; teammate Billy Kooy added 12 points in the Arlington loss. Connor and fellow Hawk senior Svayjeet Singh each tallied 11 points for Terrace.

The new-look Hawks, who lost a number of players from last year’s fourth-place-at-state team to graduation, started two freshmen – Fuentes and Oliver Shaw-Jones – on Tuesday.

Fuentes credited efforts made prior to the start of the season as the reason for the team’s ability to comeback from such a big second-half deficit to Arlington (0-0 in 4A Wesco League, 3-1 overall) on Tuesday.

“That’s just the work we put in during the offseason and all the conditioning we do,” Fuentes said. “We condition more than anybody else; we just keep working all the time, grinding physically and mentally.”

Fuentes finished with six points in his first game in front of classmates, parents and fans at Mountlake Terrace High School. But for him, the night wasn’t about building up any individual statistics in his home debut.

“To me, I’m just worried about winning,” Fuentes said. “I just want to get to Tacoma (the site of the state championship tournament). We need wins to do that.”

Tuesday’s game was a rematch of last year’s District 1 3A Boys Basketball Tournament championship game, a contest that Arlington won 61-53 and one of just four games that the Hawks lost all season. (Arlington has since moved up to the 4A classification.)

For Fuentes – who, as a freshman this year, didn’t even play in the district championship game last season – last year’s loss to Arlington  is forgotten history.

“We’ve just kind of moved on and are in the present instead of the past,” Fuentes said. “We didn’t really worry about that game because this is a new start; it’s a new season.”

Tuesday’s win also marked the home debut of Terrace’s coach Johnny Phillips, a 1990 graduate of the school and former long-time assistant to prior Hawk head coach Nalin Sood.

Now 3-0 overall (1-0 in 3A Wesco League play), the Hawks will try to continue their winning ways on Friday, Dec. 13, with another home contest as they will face the Shorecrest Scots as part of a varsity basketball doubleheader. The Terrace boys will tip off at approximately 8 p.m. following a 6:30 p.m. game featuring the girls’ varsity teams from the two schools.

Prep Boys Basketball: Arlington at Mountlake Terrace, Dec. 10

Arlington     10      13      14     9   –  46

Terrace        12        8      13     14  –  47

Mountlake Terrace individual scoring: Rayshaun Connor 11, Svayjeet Singh 11, Shan Shah 8, Anthony Fuentes 6, Alex Mkrtychyan 5, Brody Myers-Little 4, Oliver Shaw-Jones 2, Hunter Nuckols, Jordan Wilson

Arlington individual scoring: Leyton Martin 20, Billy Kooy 12, Jackson Trotter 6, Hudson Miller 3, Jake Willis 2, Mac Crews 2, Landon Bowen 1, Kaid Hunter

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

Mountlake Terrace next game: versus Shorecrest; Friday, Dec. 13; 8 p.m. at Mountlake Terrace High School

Arlington next game: versus Glacier Peak; Friday, Dec. 13; 8 p.m. at Glacier Peak High School