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With the regular season winding down and first place in the 2A/3A Wesco League South Conference standings still up for grabs, tensions were high in the gym of Meadowdale High School Saturday as the Mavericks hosted the Edmonds-Woodway Warriors in a key high school boys’ basketball league battle.
After a couple of players jousted for position under the boards during the second half, a technical foul was called on E-W’s Julian Gray. But before emotions escalated, teammate Dre Simonsen stepped in to bring some order to his team.
“I feel that, a lot of us, they get overwhelmed and they start talking to the refs,” Simonsen said. “I just try to bring them down. Julian’s tech, it’s like, unnecessary; it’s extra points for them. So I’m just trying to tell him to calm down and not give away extra points.”
With his steady hand on the emotions of the team — and his team-leading 16 points scored — Simonsen and the Warriors walked away from Saturday’s intense contest with a 61-55 road victory over the Mavericks.
The win lifted E-W’s Wesco League record to 10-1, matching the mark of the Shorewood Stormrays and setting up their clash on Wednesday, Feb. 4, as a matchup for the South Conference championship and potential No. 1 seed in the District 1 3A tournament later in February.
Simonsen scored 12 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter. The senior shot 75% from the field (6-for-8) in the game and he sank two of three attempts from beyond the 3-point arc during the game’s final eight minutes.
“Sometimes I’m just feeling it and I just have to let it fly,’ Simonsen said. “Sometimes it just comes down to that.”
Will Alseth scored 13 points for the Warriors on Saturday while Grant Williams added 11 points. Shayaan Shah came off the bench to tally 13 points for E-W.
The game was a back-and-forth affair for nearly three quarters, with Edmonds-Woodway leading after the first quarter 14-12 but Meadowdale taking a 24-23 advantage into the halftime locker room.
Then with 1:23 to go in the third quarter, DJ Karl sank a 3-pointer to start an E-W 8-0 run that included a 3 by Shah and an inside bucket from Alseth off an inbounds play with one second on the shot clock. The run gave the Warriors a 40-33 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
“That was a big stretch,” noted Meadowdale Coach Roger O’Neill. “It’s a two-minute lapse in concentration, honestly, on our part defensively. And that ultimately decided the game.”
While O’Neill pointed to the final moments of the third quarter as a key portion of the contest, overall his Mavericks converted just eight of 26 attempts for 3-point shots (30.8%) in the game.
“Ultimately we are a really good 3-point shooting team and we didn’t shoot the ball very well tonight,” O’Neill said. “Credit to Edmonds-Woodway for contesting our shots. But the game got to become, kind of, a 3-point shootout and they made more shots than us. So credit to them; they deserved that win.”
The Warriors shot 52.4% (11-for-21) from beyond the 3-point arc in Saturday’s win.
Meadowdale’s Marley Miller led all scorers in the game with 17 points. Noah Million and Hassan Motley each scored 14 points in the Mavericks’ loss.
The defeat was only the fifth for the Mavs this season (8-3 in 2A/3A Wesco League South Conference, 15-5 overall). One of losses was to this same Edmonds-Woodway team (10-1 in league play, 18-2 overall) by a score of 63-48 on Jan. 9 when the team was outmuscled in the key and on the boards.
“I’m really proud of our guys that we fixed that, we made that adjustment,” O’Neill said. “It was us who were getting to the rim, early on especially. I wish that would have continued. So I’m really proud of our guys for their fight and how much they’ve improved here in the last three weeks.”
Meadowdale will travel to Shorecrest for a clash with the Scots Tuesday, Feb. 3, then face either Snohomish or Everett in a Wesco League crossover game Friday, Feb. 6, to close out their regular season.
For Edmonds-Woodway, Saturday’s win over their cross-town rivals was big, but the team is already looking ahead to Wednesday’s important matchup with the Stormrays.
“We have one more, Shorewood, to get the first seed (at the District 1 3A tournament),” Simonsen said.
Prep Boys Basketball: Edmonds-Woodway at Meadowdale, Jan. 31
Edmonds-Woodway 14 9 17 21 – 61
Meadowdale 12 12 9 22 – 55
Edmonds-Woodway individual scorers: Dre Simonsen 16, Will Alseth 13, Shayaan Shah 13, Grant Williams 11, DJ Karl 8, Julian Gray, Cruz Escandon
Meadowdale individual scorers: Marley Miller 17, Noah Million 14, Hassan Motley 14, Khalil Botley 4, Nolan Lee 3, Richard Jones Jr. 3, Orion Ezeonwuka
Records: Edmonds-Woodway 10-1 in 2A/3A Wesco League South Conference, 18-2 overall; Meadowdale 8-3 in 2A/3A Wesco League South Conference, 15-5 overall
Edmonds-Woodway next game: versus Shorewood; Wednesday, Feb. 4; 7:15 p.m. at Shorewood High School
Meadowdale next game: versus Shorecrest; Tuesday, Feb. 3; 7:15 p.m. at Shorecrest High School
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