Mead semi tough

TACOMA – How many more rabbits could be left in the hat?

For a second night in a row, the Mead girls basketball team rallied from an 11-point deficit. Senior guard Chenise Pakootas’ putback with 5 seconds left lifted Mead past Garfield 54-53 in the State 4A tournament semifinals at the Tacoma Dome.

“I just wanted to focus and put it high on the glass because I’ve been shooting bad,” said Pakootas, who was 0 for 12 before hitting the winner. “I knew it was going to go in.”

Mead (23-5) takes on No. 1-ranked Auburn Riverside (28-0) tonight at 9 in the championship game. The game will be broadcast on FSN.

Edmonds-Woodway eliminated Lewis and Clark 56-53 by making just enough free throws in the final minute.

Mead 54, Garfield 53: Panthers coach Regan Drew called timeout to set up a play for senior Jazmine Redmon.

Redmon was to back away toward the free-throw line, then cut back toward the basket. It worked perfectly and she took the pass and had a wide-open 2-footer. But she apparently had too much adrenaline and the ball rolled off the rim.

Pakootas had positioned herself for a possible rebound, and sure enough she snagged the ball and went back up. The ball kissed off the glass and into the net.

Garfield (16-10) pushed the ball immediately but a 3-point shot by Shaunice Robinson from 22 feet bounced off the rim as the buzzer sounded.

“It’s not good for my health, I know that much,” Drew said.

“It’s what we talked about yesterday – the heart thing. We didn’t shoot well, but we found a way.”

Mead shot just 25 percent from the field, making 16 of 64 attempts – 16 more than Garfield took. But the smaller Panthers outrebounded the Bulldogs 51-34, including 30 offensive rebounds.

The extra shots made the difference as Mead had 11 more second-chance points than Garfield.

“She was wide open,” Drew said of Redmon. “But we told everybody to crash the boards just in case. O-boards is part of the reason we won yesterday. And we knew we had to get on the O-boards tonight, especially shooting 18 percent in the first half. We just talked (at halftime) about having to scrap through it. I didn’t like our energy in the first half. I thought we were down, we were timid, we were hesitant. That’s not typical of this team.”

A driving basket by Robinson gave Garfield a 43-32 lead with 33 seconds left in the third quarter.

That’s when Mead started its comeback. The Panthers went on a 14-1 surge, taking their first lead since early at 45-44 when Redmon, who played the entire fourth quarter with four fouls, hit a high running bank shot with 4:17 to go.

Moments later, a free throw by Redmon’s freshman sister, Jade, who also played with four fouls most of the final period, put the Panthers ahead 50-46 with 2:49 left.

Garfield’s final spurt put them ahead 53-52 when post Cora McManus rebounded her miss and hit a 7-footer with 24 seconds to go.

Jazmine Redmon missed on a runner and Kalee Junkermier’s follow was partially deflected out of bounds with 9 seconds to go. That’s when Drew called timeout to draw up the last play.

Junkermier and Jazmine Redmon led with 16 points apiece.

Despite her shooting woes, Pakootas led Mead on the boards with 10 rebounds.

“I’m proud of my girls for not giving in, for not giving up,” Drew said. “It starts with Jazmine and then everyone else follows.”

Drew likes the matchup for the title.

“There’s no pressure on us, no pressure at all,” she said. “We’ve just got to stay loose and continue to play our game.”

Which apparently must include improbable-like comebacks.

Edmonds-Woodway 56, Lewis and Clark 53: Losing games in the final minutes isn’t a coincidence for the Tigers this season.

It became a pattern.

“Our losses have all been in that category,” LC coach Jim Redmon said. “The fourth quarter, the last 3 or 4 minutes. Just one turnover or a couple of bad decisions on a shot or whatever, it’s haunted us this whole year.”

The Tigers’ string of trophies in five consecutive years came to a halt.

A basket by Daisy Burke pulled LC (17-11) into a 44-44 tie with 3:39 remaining. But the Warriors took advantage of a mismatch when Alex Kenney got behind the Tigers’ defense for an easy basket seconds later and then another mismatch allowed Angela Woods to complete a three-point play and all of a sudden E-W (24-3) led 49-44 with 2:33 to go.

LC couldn’t dig out of the hole.

“There are two ways you can score in basketball,” E-W coach Duane Hodges said. “You get a numerical advantage like 3 on 2 or 2 on 1 or else you get a physical advantage. That’s basically it.

“You’re not going to get numerical advantages on those guys because they’re too quick up and down the court in transition. We just had to exploit the physical advantages.”

Devyn Galland led LC with 14 points, Nakia Arquette had 16 and Hayley Hendricksen had 11 to go with a game-high 18 rebounds.

“I was pleased with how we battled and tried to come back,” Redmon said. “We were ranked (No.) 2 early. I guess that’s maybe because of tradition.

“As we started to drop off a little bit – the loss to North Central, the loss to (Gonzaga) Prep – I think we started to second- guess what kind of team we were. We had to come back and refigure what we were. I thought we did that.”

E-W will play for fifth or eighth place today.