EVERSON — Sehome can feel the postseason coming.
The Mariners looked the part of a team ready for the playoffs Thursday night as they cruised to a 62-40 victory over Nooksack Valley.
Although Sehome only held a 13-8 lead after the first quarter, the Mariners were slowly building momentum.
Junior Grey Garrison poked the ball free for a steal and capped it off in transition with a two-handed jam toward the end of the first and it was all Mariners from there.
With all the attention Garrison was attracting, junior Isaac Lawrence came off the bench and found himself open, hitting four 3-pointers in a row in the second quarter.
Another 3-pointer from Garrison and a block from Mathew Storms on the other end closed out the first half and the Mariners led 36-19.
“It helps when the ball goes in. It puts a lot of pressure on the other team,” Sehome coach Skyler Gillispie said. “We made a lot of shots early and I think it was just hard for [Nooksack Valley] to keep up when our shots were falling.”
At no point did it seem Sehome’s shots ever stopped falling.
The Mariners continued to have their way with the Pioneers in the second half and Garrison built off his big first half, scoring the first seven points of the second.
“He got out in transition a lot based on our stops, so those turnovers turned into easy baskets for him,” Gillispie said. “He played within himself, he didn’t overreach and just played his game.”
Garrison gave credit to the rest of the team.
“I got a lot of easy ones because of my teammates,” Garrison said. “I had some good looks and just had to finish.”
Sehome’s offense had itself a night with Garrison leading the way with 21 points. Lawrence finished the game with 15 points, all of them coming from deep and junior Grant Kepley added nine.
That kind of production on offense doesn’t come without the defense doing its job.
“In the playoffs it all comes down to getting stops and executing in the half-court,” Gillispie said. “To be able to come out and do that tonight was big for us. There’s been games where we didn’t show up defensively and lose our mindset, but tonight they executed for the full 32 minutes.”
Nooksack Valley coach Rich Skillman called Sehome the toughest team they’ve played all season.
Junior Bennett DeLange led the Pioneers with 14 points. Freshman Brady Ackerman and sophomore Joey Brown each scored eight.
Skillman said he’s seen his team get better in every aspect from the start of the season.
“If we play that game the first game of the year we would have had 45 turnovers,” he said. “They’re getting confident and starting to figure out roles.”
Nooksack Valley wrapped up its regular season with the loss and will be the No. 3 seed in the 1A district tournament next week. Sehome will finish its regular season Friday at Port Angeles and its seeding for the 2A district tournament is yet to be determined.
