MOUNT VERNON – The Lions are back on top.
Lynden girls basketball secured its third district title in the last four seasons with a 53-43 victory over Burlington-Edison Friday night at Mount Vernon High School.
The top-seeded Lions were led by a game-high 16 points from freshman post Payton Mills and 15 from junior guard Kalanie Newcomb.
“It’s a war that we came out on top of, so you’ve got to feel good about that because you’ve got warriors going into the tournament,” Lynden coach Vic Wolffis said. “It’s a culmination of an entire season’s body of work.”
The win over the No. 2-seeded Tigers also gave Wolffis his first district championship since 2006, when he was the coach of the Lynden Christian boys team.
Newcomb said this Lynden team has the camaraderie and maturity to make it further than last year’s first-round exit.
“I feel like this team is a lot more mature than last year,” she added. “So as long as we just stick to our fundamentals, don’t freak out and panic when we get to the [SunDome], and realize it’s just another game, I feel like we’ll go far.”
Lynden held a slim 16-12 lead heading into the second quarter, and that edge grew to seven by halftime.
Burlington-Edison struggled to stop the Lions’ versatile offense, and Lynden’s ability to stretch out the Tigers’ defense made them difficult to stop.
When Newcomb or fellow junior guard Mallary Villars wasn’t draining 3-pointers, Mills was dominating the paint and drawing fouls.
The Lions ballooned their lead to 33-20 early in the third quarter, scoring the first seven points of the second half before the Tigers drilled a 3-pointer to stop the bleeding.
After that, Lynden could not buy a bucket.
Burlington-Edison closed out the third quarter on a 9-0 run, and the Lions’ once-healthy lead was within the Tigers’ reach at just four.
“To their credit, they made it just as hard to get baskets [as the regular season meeting],” Wolffis said. “We had a hard time scoring.”
Allowing just two points to Burlington-Edison over the first four minutes of the fourth quarter, Lynden re-extended its advantage to 10 at 41-31.
Points continued to come in waves for the Lions, and the Tigers did nothing but give up. Burlington-Edison ate into the lead, narrowing it back to four with 1:34 left in the game.
Continuous fouls by the Tigers led to multiple trips to the free-throw line for sister duo Kalanie and Adia Newcomb. Neither one missed a single freebie in the final period — each going 6-for-6 in the fourth quarter — and that was enough to stave off Burlington-Edison’s comeback attempt.
Lynden shot 14-for-14 from the line as a team in the fourth.
“It’s just the same old free throw,” Kalanie Newcomb said. “You’ve just got to go up there and not think there’s anything to it, and then put it in.”
Adia Newcomb added eight points for Lynden while Villars finished with seven.
Sophomores Chesah Holmes and Claire Bishop were Burlington-Edison’s leading scorers with 15 points.
Lynden advanced to 20-4 overall, earning its third 2A District 1 championship in the last four seasons. The Lions came into the game having already clinched a regionals berth, and they will play in the round of 16 on Feb. 24 or 25.
“It just gives them confidence,” Wolffis said of the championship win. “They actually won a championship, and they’re really hard to get. There are teams all over out there that never get them.”
Burlington-Edison fell to 17-6 overall and will also play its regional game on one of those two days.
