Girls basketball: Gig Harbor’s comeback falls short against North Thurston
Down by one with 4.9 seconds left on the clock, the Gig Harbor High girls basketball team had the ball with a chance to win the game against visiting North Thurston on Friday night.
But the Rams pounced on Gig Harbor senior Brynna Maxwell with a double team and never gave the Tides a clean look on the final shot, coming away with a 68-67 road win over the defending Class 3A state champions.
“We were trying to get to the basket,” said junior wing Tate McReynolds. “We tried to get it into Brynna and they just clobbered here and we ran out of time and couldn’t get a shot off.”
Gig Harbor coach Megan Murray said the Tides wanted to attack the rim on the final play, but North Thurston’s defense didn’t allow penetration.
“We just wanted to get it in and attack and get a quick shot off, because we knew we only had four seconds left,” Murray said. “I don’t know what happened. Just unfortunate that we didn’t get that off. I told the girls that we wanted that chance to win. When you play a good team and it goes back and forth like that, you have that opportunity. We just didn’t get it off.”
The loss marked Gig Harbor’s (4-2 overall, 3-1 South Sound Conference 3A) first league loss of the season.
“It hurts,” McReynolds said. “We have goals that we set at the beginning of the season and it’s not what we thought, but we just need to work harder in practice. We all have responsibilities to just get better every day. We just came up a little short in this one.”
While Gig Harbor led 40-34 at the halftime break, the Rams outscored the Tides 24-14 in the third quarter.
“We’ve been emphasizing energy a lot, especially at the start of all four quarters,” McReynolds said. “In the second half, we just got back on our heels. We talked a lot about ball movement. We went away from that even though it was working. It hurt us in the end.”
Maxwell, a Utah signee, scored a game-high 30 points. But the Rams had a go-to scorer of their own in senior Brooklyn Harn, who poured in 27 points for North Thurston.
“She has really, really improved her game over the course of just a year,” Murray said. “I don’t know if she even missed. Maybe once, it seemed like. She just has really blossomed as a player.”
Despite the constant box-and-one defense and double teams keying on Maxwell, she was still able to score 30 points for the Tides.
“We know that she’s going to face that,” Murray said. “She’s got an extra target on her, if you will, because of her capabilities. We’ve talked big time about spreading the points and everybody willingly being able to score in different areas. We’re getting there. It just makes it tough when she’s a focus and they take her out. Then it’s just about ball movement and getting really good shots that we want.”
Gig Harbor will look to bounce back against visiting Capital at 7 p.m. on Dec. 19.
“We know what we’ve got to work on,” McReynolds said. “We just have to put it behind us and get ready for next week. The loss hurts but you can’t do anything about it now.”
This story was originally published December 14, 2018 at 10:35 PM.