SNOHOMISH—The smiles on their faces and the tears of joy said it all.
When the last second finally ticked off the clock the Oak Harbor girls sideline erupted into a scene of jubilation Wednesday night as the Cats defeated the Snohomish Panthers 46-44.
“We told ourselves if we win we are going to be all over each other screaming and crying and we did,” senior Shirley Spears said.
With 23 seconds remaining the Cats nabbed their biggest lead of the night, 46-41 on two free throws by sophomore Amanda Watts.
It appeared the five point lead may have been enough until Panther Kelsey Manning nailed a three-pointer with nine seconds left in the game. The shot brought Snohomish to within two points and forced the Wildcats to inbound the ball from under their own basket. While under heavy pressure Spears got called for a five-second violation, returning possession of the ball to Snohomish.
“I thought I blew it,” Spears said. “I thought I really blew it for everybody. Then I was like we can do it, we can get it back.”
That’s exactly what Oak Harbor did, forcing Snohomish into committing a traveling violation with one second remaining.
An inbounded pass and one tick of the clock later and the Wildcats had grabbed sole possession of first place in the WesCo North. It was also the Cats’ tenth consecutive victory, with their last loss coming eleven games ago against the Panthers, 61-58 in Oak Harbor.
“This is their first home loss in about three years, so it was really big,” sophomore Heidi McNeill said.
Things didn’t start out so pleasant for the Cats, who found themselves trailing, 18-10 in the first quarter. Several turnovers and missed shots forced Oak Harbor to dig out of a hole in a tough environment.
“Snohomish came out like gangbusters and maybe caught us off guard,” Oak Harbor coach Brett McLeod said. “That was a little nerve wracking.”
Coming out of the locker room at halftime trailing by six, 26-20, the Wildcats were a rejuvenated team. After applying a full-court-press suggested by the players during the break, the Cats forced Snohomish into several mistakes and bad shots.
“The thing is sometimes we don’t always steal the ball,” McLeod said. “We get that energy going and we hustle back and we create some things.”
With 4:40 remaining in the third quarter Oak Harbor grabbed its first lead off a spinning post move from McNeill. From that moment on it was back and forth battle, which saw seven lead changes and one tie.
Beside the change in defensive philosophy during the second half, a major factor to the team’s success was the energy provided by Spears. By the end of the game she had grabbed 21 rebounds, coming up two shy of setting a school record.
“I don’t even care about scoring,” Spears said. “I love rebounding, all I care about is rebounds.”
Her teammates also seem to feed off the energy she generates .
“I think everybody follows her lead in terms of just getting after it, working hard and being real competitive,” McLeod said.
McNeill was also a major contributor, leading the way with 22 points for Oak Harbor. Spears added 12 points along with her outstanding rebounding performance. The other two Cats to score Wednesday were junior Kaylea Kingma with seven and Watts with five.
Next for Oak Harbor is Bellingham 12:20 p.m. today, Feb 1. at Key Arena in Seattle.
Oak Harbor—10 10 16 10—46
Snohomish— 18 8 7 11—44
Scoring—OH: McNeill 22, Spears 12, Kingma 7, Watts 5.
S: Moore 9, Angell 7, Manning 6, Cassidy 6, Kling 4, Benson 4, Osness 4, Henderson 4.
Records: Oak Harbor 9-1 league, 11-2 overall; Snohomish 8-2 league, 11-3 overall.
