Viking girls basketball win district opener

Boys lose in first round MIKE ANDERTON | CONTRIBUTING WRITER Lake Stevens boys and girls basketball teams opened District play last week.  The girls hosted Mountlake Terrace on Feb. 12, beating the Hawks 69-36, while the boys lost at Edmonds-Woodway 51-37 on Feb. 13.
District games played later in the week will be reported on in next week's Journal.

 Lake Girls 69, Terrace 36

 The only suspense involved in this one was would Karri Gallagher outscore the entire Terrace team?  She had 21 points at halftime to Terrace's 20.  When she went to the bench in the fourth quarter she had 33 points to Terrace's 32, before a pair of late baskets by the Hawks pushed their total to 36.

The 6-3 senior pivot made 15 of 19 field goals, most of them lay-ins off of passes from Leah Tate and Alona Personius. She made 3 of her 4 three throws.  On top of that she had 10 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, 2 steals and an assist.

No other Viking scored in double figures, though Mary Ochiltree, Brittany Tri and Personius each tallied 9 points.  Tri was the game's leading rebounder with 14, a department in which favored Lake by 41-32.

Lake (20-1) started slowly, leading by just 13-8 at the quarter break before busting the game wide open with a 2. 

point second quarter for a 39-20 halftime lead.

In one stretch beginning late in the second quarter through early in the fourth quarter Terrace (4-17) missed 20 consecutive field goals.  Corinne Pingul, with 19 points, scored more than half of her team's total points.
 At Edmonds 51, Lake boys 37

 The last three times Lake has qualified for District it has opened at Edmonds-Woodway and all three times, including last year, the Warriors have handled the Vikings decisively.

Never mind Lake's non-league season-opening 61-60 against E-W.  TheWarriors (18-3) look like a much better team now.  Their defense frustrated Lake all night, both inside and out, zone or man.  Offensively, they attacked the basket relentlessly, producing the majority of their points on lay-ins.
Their quick, bookend guards Max Ortiz and James Conti took care of the ball and dished for many an assist inside, especially to 6-6 Connor Donaldson, who scored 20 points.
Lake kept pace early in the game, thanks to Sean Stickney's 12 points in the first half.  Stickney, however, was shut out in the second half, and there was no one else to take up the slack.  Only Ryan Legg shot the ball well, making 5 of 8 for the game.

As has been the case in most of its losses this season Lake (14-7) shot poorly.  The Vikings made just 12 baskets in 41 attempts, for 29 percent, including 2 of 11 threes.  Conversely, E-W, which made 14 of its first 21 shots, made 46 percent overall, 24 of 52.

And unlike the first meeting between the two teams, where Lake forced a flurry of Warrior turnovers to come from behind for a last-second win, this time it was the Vikings who hurt themselves with turnovers, 21 of them, to E-W's 14.  Lake was victimized by 13 E-W steals.

At the outset it looked like it was going to be another down-to-the-wire thriller.

Stickney's 3-point play with 2:23 left in the first quarter gave Lake a 14-13 lead but the Warriors closed the quarter with 6 straight points to go up by 19-14.

Lake managed to make just two of 12 shots in the second quarter to fall behind at the half by 31-20.

Lake mounted its last rally of the game in the third quarter.  Legg opened with a pair of mid-range jumpers, Kelly Kurisu made two of 4 free throws, and the Viking defense did its part, forcing E-W to miss 8 of its first 9 shots.  Shane Kaska's three (his only points of the game) at the 2:20 mark cut the gap to 33-29.  But the Warriors ran off the final 7 points of the quarter to make it 40-29, and

Lake was unable to mount any kind of threat in the fourth.

Lake lost the rebounding battle 34-30, with Stickney's 9 and Kaska's 6 accounting for half of Lake's total.

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