Story and photo by Doug Petrowski

Glacier Peak was the consensus preseason pick to come out on top of the 3A Wesco South boys basketball division; on Thursday Mountlake Terrace learned that the Grizzlies are as good as advertised, defeating the Hawks 63-54 at Glacier Peak High School.

“We didn’t think we were going to come in here and get an easy win, but I’m just disappointed in the way we played,” said Hawk Head Coach Nalin Sood.
The game had been tied numerous times early and at the half, 27-27; it stayed close until the fourth quarter when Glacier Peak, up 49-47, pulled away by outscoring the Hawks 14-7 in the final 5:30.

“It was nice that we got within two, but we had no defensive rhythm,” Sood said. “We didn’t have anyone bring their A-game tonight. So it’s disappointing. It’s disappointing that we’re not playing defense the way we are capable of playing.”

“We didn’t check very well, we had way too many turnovers, we didn’t have good guard play and we didn’t have a defensive presence inside,” Sood added.

Glacier Peak’s 63 points was the most given up by the Hawks in a game this season.

For the second game in a row, senior Marquis Armstead was not available to play, sitting on the bench in street clothes. Coach Sood has only said the 6-1 starting guard is out indefinitely.

Sood has been frustrated by not having his full roster available to practice or play. “I’m just hoping at some point we’re going to have our entire team to try to work on getting a rhythm down, instead of one game out of eight when we’ve had our entire team,” he stated. “We’ve had adversity. We just hope that after Christmas we can start working with our team and that we can have everyone be reliable, team-conscious guys.”

The Hawk loss to Glacier Peak gave both teams identical records going into the winter break at 3-1 in the 3A Wesco South division, 6-2 overall. The Hawks take a break from Wesco play during the break and host an eight-team, two-day tournament starting on Friday, Dec. 28.

Mountlake Terrace scoring: Greg Bowman 18; Blake Fernandez 14; Loren Lacasse 10; Jesse Zerom 10; Anh Viet Nguyen 2
Glacier Peak scoring: Zach Pederson 18; Ramsey Rosales 16; Dreu Vader 15; Mitchl Pohrman 7; Austin Kiser 5; Trey Chambers 2

Mountlake Terrace scoring by quarter    12-15-14-13  —  54

Glacier Peak scoring by quarter        11-16-17-19  —  63