Story and photo by Doug Petrowski

Full gym. Loud crowd. First place on the line. The Wesco 3A South match-up between conference leaders Mountlake Terrace and Shorewood was the type of battle that might be decided by which team could handle the pressure best. On Friday night, that team was the Mountlake Terrace Hawks, as they came from behind and beat the T-Birds, 52-50, at Shorewood High School.

Preparing for the clash, Hawk Head Coach Nalin Sood expressed to his team the need to be mentally prepared for the tough road game. “We talked about having poise. We talked about having confidence and having focus in this kind of environment,” Sood told reporters after the win. “If you don’t have any one of those things you’re probably going to get beat, and you might not get back into a basketball game.”

Mountlake Terrace had to claw back from a seven-point deficit at halftime to get back into this game, and did so with a combat-mentality that Sood liked seeing out of his team.

“We can be a little bit better, but I don’t think we can be better with our fight,” Sood said. “I thought we had a great fight; a great competitiveness.”

Junior Greg Bowman led the front line attack for the Hawks against one of the premiere players in the league, 6-9 Shorewood senior Josh Hawkinson. “I feel battle-tested,” Bowman said after the game. “He’s a good player. It was fun.”

Hawkinson, who has already committed to play at Washington State University next year, led the T-Birds with 22 points and 15 rebounds. No other Shorewood players reached double digits in scoring.

“They’re not just Hawkinson. They run their stuff; they check. But our thing was Hawkinson is going to score. We don’t want somebody else to go off and get 20 because they are good shooters,” Sood explained. “Those numbers worked out, and the last numbers worked out on the scoreboard.”

The final score, and the game itself, wasn’t settled until the final seconds. Hawk Blake Fernandez could have sealed the win for Terrace with 13 seconds left, but missed the front end of a 1-and-1 opportunity from the free throw line, giving the T-Birds one last gasp. Shorewood’s Ben Andrews missed a floated in the lane that would have sent the game to overtime. The Hawks recovered the rebound and Fernandez sailed the ball to the other end of the court to secure the win.

Loren Lacasse led the Hawks in scoring with 12 points; Marquis Armstead added 11.

Terrace takes over sole possession of first place in the Wesco 3A South conference with a 10-1 league mark, 16-2 overall. The Hawks are still ranked eighth in the AP 3A state basketball rankings. Shorewood drops to 9-2 in Wesco play, 14-4 overall, and is now tied for second in the conference with Glacier Peak.

The Hawks travel to Shorecrest High School next Tuesday, Jan. 29, for a 7:15 p.m. match-up with the Scots. Terrace will finish regular season play with a home game against Glacier Peak on Thursday, Jan. 31.

Mountlake Terrace quarter scoring:    15 –   7 – 16 – 14 – 52

Shorewood quarter scoring:        20 –   9 – 10 – 11 – 50

Mountlake Terrace individual scoring:  Loren Lacasse 12; Marquis Armstead 11; Greg Bowman 10; Michael Lotz 7; Blake Fernandez 6; Jesse Zerom 6

Shorewood individual scoring:  Josh Hawkinson 22; Brandon Mar 9; Taylor Freeman 6; Ben Andrews 5; Karson Gronvold 5; Zane Hopen 3