Edmonds-Woodway Girls Outlast Jackson, Move Into Third Place Game

Two down, two to go.

That's the story for the girls basketball team, which maneuvered past Jackson by a count of 50-39 on Wednesday night.

Behind a game high 21 points from senior Angela Woods, the Warriors fought their way into a rematch on Saturday with their arch-nemesis, the Marysville-Pilchuck Tomahawks.

After taking control early on with a 10-2 run to begin the game, Edmonds-Woodway cooled considerably on the offensive end and found themselves challenged by a determined Jackson squad.

The Timberwolves pulled within two points with a little over three minutes left in the third period and held the potent and versatile Warrior offense to only one bucket over nearly eight minutes of basketball.

It appeared perhaps the stars were aligning for Jackson when an inbounds pass was swatted off E-W forward Sydney Donaldson and collected by a Jackson player who quickly got the ball to freshman Kelli Kingma, who was streaking to the hoop for what appeared to be an open layup.

Until re-entered the picture.

The senior, who had sprinted back on defense after losing possession, collected herself with a perfectly timed jump to snare Kingma's shot out of the air and throw an outlet pass to Madeline Kasper.

Kasper then moved the ball to Amia Nash, who had freed herself for an easy transition bucket that would give the Warriors a four point lead the Timberwolves would not again cut into.

"I just wanted to keep my team fighting, I just had the mindset that the ball was mine," said Donaldson.

Edmonds-Woodway coach Duane Hodges talked after the game about the incredible effort and desire his team showed throughout the evening. They  consistently hit the floor for loose balls while clawing their way to victory.

"That's the way you win games in February," said Hodges. "You have to have a lot of heart and if you don't, your season is going to end."

There is no doubt the Timberwolves did everything in their power to avoid that heartbreaking fate.

Jackson, which struggled with turnovers and poor shooting of their own throughout the game, remained within an arms reach of the Warriors. They again cut the deficit to four with 5:07 to go after a layup from freshman Sierra Anderson.

But it was not to be for the visitors from Mill Creek, who would hit an unspeakable dry-spell after Anderson's bucket, scoring only once more in the game during a stretch that saw E-W move their lead from two to eight and put the game away for good.

"They [Jackson] played a really good game," said Woods post-game.

The proficient scoring senior had two of the three shots the Warriors hit from beyond the three-point arc and scored a game-high 21 points.

Woods, though, spoke of the importance of teammate Amia Nash's ability to come off the bench and interject the team with an energetic presence on both ends of the floor.

"Our sixth person, came out and I told her she needed to bring energy and she did," said Woods.

Nash is the embodiment of the team's selfless ideal and the consummate "glue player" basketball coaches covet.

E-W coach Duane Hodges said that despite the fact the Warriors continuously won league games by wide margins, he believed they had the mettle to do the job on nights like Wednesday when shots refused to fall.

"I kind of knew because we have a feisty group of seniors," said Hodges.

Juniors Kristin Stoffel and Hayley Gjertsen led the Timberwolves on offense with 12 and eight points respectively.

The freshman Kingma added five more, which all came on free throws.

Ashley Albertson added 10 for the Warriors, who with the win find themselves two more wins from a return to the 4A state playoffs.

The first of those must come against the Tomahawks, who spoiled the Warriors tournament opener with a dramatic, last second win.

The winner of Saturday's game will move on to face the third place team from 4A KingCo for the right to play in the 2011 4A Hardwood Classic at Jackson High School beginning on Feb. 25.