Mount Si too much for Glacier Peak in 4A semifinal, 62-49
Ever since Mount Si took second in the Class 4A state tournament last season, losing to Anton Watson and champion Gonzaga Prep, the Wildcats have been on a mission. And after Friday night’s 62-49 state tournament semifinal win over Glacier Peak, Mount Si is knocking on the door.
“It’s the one thing — all during the season, we try to take it one game at a time, but we know in the back of our heads, this is what came here to do,” said Mount Si’s Tyler Patterson, who scored 17 points on 6-of-13 shooting in the win. “We worked all offseason to get here. It feels amazing just to get back.”
It was a weird game; Mount Si shut Glacier Peak out in the first quarter and led 11-0 after the first, but Glacier Peak stormed back to score 23 in the second quarter and cut the deficit to just three points.
But Mount Si didn’t let that second-quarter run change the complexion of the game, outscoring Glacier Peak 17-9 in the third quarter to seize momentum back.
“I think we got lazy,” Patterson said. “We shut them out in the first quarter, and then they score 23 points in the second quarter. At halftime, the coaches were telling us it’s not like us to give up 23 points in a quarter. So we had to come out and assert our dominance on defense right away. We came out and did that and scored right away. We knew they weren’t going to give up. That’s what they do, they fight forever. So we had to come out and the first eight minutes were going to be huge.”
Mount Si has an enviable amount of height and length on the roster, with Patterson standing 6-foot-7, Saint Mary’s commit Jabe Mullins at 6-foot-6, forward Hayden Curtiss at 6-foot-9, and several other players over 6-foot-5. That, combined with the team’s shooting ability, makes Mount Si a matchup issue for any team or any style of defense.
“We feel like it’s pretty hard for teams to match up with us,” Patterson said. “We’re pretty versatile. We have Hayden in the post, who’s big, we have my brother and then we have Jabe and Bennett. It’s just crazy, we feel like on defense, we can control that and then on offense, we can adjust and with our defense backing us up.”
Mount Si will face Central Valley — which upset No. 1 seed and previously undefeated Union earlier in the day — in Saturday’s 4A state championship game.
“(We just want to keep) doing exactly what we’ve been doing,” Patterson said. “Fighting on defense, gritting it out, shooting it well, passing it and whoever is hot is hot.”
