After celebrating their District 1 3A Boys Basketball Tournament championship last weekend, the Mountlake Terrace Hawks got back to work this week preparing for their next tilt, a matchup in the regional round of the WIAA state playoffs.

The Hawks will take on the Kelso Hilanders Saturday, Feb. 26, at Jackson High School in Mill Creek; tipoff is set for 10 a.m.

Terrace, with an overall record this year of 17-2, was given the No. 9 seed in the WIAA State 3A Boys Basketball Championships bracket and will need to defeat the No. 16-seed Hilanders to move on to the Hardwood Classic and games at the Tacoma Dome that start on Wednesday, March 2.

The loser of Saturday’s Hawks-Hilanders clash will see their 2021-2022 season come to a close.

The Hawks head into regional round play on a roll. The team went 4-0 in the District 1 tournament, including a 58-53 victory over the Ferndale Golden Eagles to win the tourney title game.

Overall, Terrace has won nine games in a row and 16 of their last 17 contests.

The Hawks will face a Kelso squad on Saturday that is 15-8 overall this season and was earlier crowned the Greater St. Helens 3A/4A regular season champion with a league record of 8-0. The Hilanders advanced to the regional game against the Hawks with a 79-57 victory over the No. 17-seed Shorecrest Scots in a regional round play-in game Tuesday, Feb. 22.

One theme of Hawks’ Coach Nalin Sood is not to be overly anxious about potential season-ending games and that this team’s legacy won’t be contingent upon the result of a single contest.

“I told the kids the other day whether they win or lose this game, you can’t base a season off of one game,” Sood explained. “The body of work is what you should be proud about. But let’s continue to see what we can do while we have a couple of weeks left.”

Should Terrace earn the victory on Saturday, the team will get to play at least one more game during the final week of the prep basketball season March 2-5. The winner of the Hawks-Hilanders game will face the loser of the Garfield-Tumwater regional game in a Hardwood Classic elimination contest on Wednesday, March 2, 2 p.m. at the Tacoma Dome. The winner of that matchup will play at least two more times at the Dome — win four straight in Tacoma and you will claim the 3A state crown.

To see the entire WIAA State 3A Boys Basketball Championships bracket, click www.wpanetwork.com/wiaa/brackets/tournament.php?act=view&tournament_id=3466.

The Terrace-Kelso matchup is the first of two regional round contests to be played Saturday at Jackson High School:

10 a.m. — No. 16-seed Kelso vs. No. 9-seed Mountlake Terrace, 3A Boys regional loser-out game (winner advances to the Hardwood Classic at the Tacoma Dome)

Noon  — No. 8-seed Quincy vs. No. 1-seed Kings, 1A Boys regional game (both teams advance to the State Tournament at the Yakima Valley SunDome)

— By Doug Petrowski