TUALATIN, Ore.-- Friday night’s 6A women’s basketball action provided plenty of upsets.
No. 12 ranked Mountainside took down No. 5 ranked Oregon City by a basket. No. 14 ranked McMinnville defeated No. 3 ranked West Linn, and defending champions, Benson, bowed out against South Salem.
Yet, in a night full of unexpected results, the Southridge Skyhawks were able to hold on in the second half, doing just enough to keep a young Tualatin Timberwolves (19-7, No. 8) team at bay in a 51-38 victory on the road.
With the win, the Skyhawks (19-6, No. 9) advanced to the first round of the state playoffs where they will take on top-ranked Beaverton on Wednesday afternoon.
“I thought it was one of the best team efforts that we have had in a while,” recently named Oregon Girls Basketball Player of the Year, McKelle Meek said. “We’re going to need that energy going into the Chiles Center.”
Meek, who scored 25 points in the team’s first-round game against Lakeridge, led all scorers with 20 points on Friday night while Kyla Vinson chipped in with nine points for the visitors. 6-3 junior, Natalie Lathrop, led Tualatin with 13 points.
The Timberwolves stuck around in the first half, and at times their pressure proved to be stifling. Anytime Meek attempted a drive to the basket, she had to fade away or be creative with Tualatin’s two big posts down low. The Skyhawks led 26-17 heading into halftime, but it was still either team's game. In the second half, the two side’s differences became apparent. Southridge is a team that has played in three consecutive state championship games whereas this is the farthest Tualatin has gone in a few seasons.
“We ran into a team that was seasoned, they’ve been in these big games, they’ve been to the championship game the last three years, and they were just a little more comfortable than us,” Tualatin first-year head coach Wes Pappas said. “But I thought our girls played hard the whole game, I thought we did a lot of things that showed we are really close and there are some things to build on.”
If this sounds like more of a positive spin for a recently-eliminated team, it is. Pappas admitted that while the result stung, but it remained a season of significant growth for the Timberwolves. A year ago they graduated five seniors, finished with a 9-16 record, and fell at Jesuit by double-digits in the first round of the playoffs. In its first season under Pappas, Tualatin has won ten more games, jumped from being ranked 24th to eighth, and hosted a second-round playoff game; if anything, the prevailing mood surrounding the program is optimistic.
“The worst part of this loss is honestly that we’re not going to be practicing tomorrow and I don’t get to be around them,” Pappas said.
For most of the night, Pappas patented 2-3 defense gave the Southridge offense fits. Both teams played aggressive full-court defenses, but once the Skyhawks found a way to exploit the Timberwolves zone in the second half, it was over. The home team eventually became too stretched out on defense, leaving large gaps between the perimeter and the post as chased the game.
“Defensively and in our press, I thought we were really active,” Meek said.
“You have to learn to attack the gaps in a zone,” Meek continued. “We practiced that a lot last week just because they leave a lot of gaps open, so we have to learn to take advantage of those.”
Southridge now turns its attention to, perhaps, its toughest challenge yet: a quarterfinal matchup against Beaverton. After beating the Beavers 46-30 in last season’s semi-final matchup, the Skyhawks have lost two consecutive times to their rivals, both by double-digits, including a 26 point defeat a week ago.
Tualatin’s length and defensive scheme is similar to what the Hawks will face come next Wednesday, but the Beavers are as seasoned as Southridge, and with something to prove in the state tournament, the real test will come shortly; a hurdle they will have to clear if they want to make it to their fourth state championship game in as many years.
“For our seniors, this could be our last game since only one of us is playing in college,” Vinson said. “We need to give it our all to make sure that we can continue playing.”
