Lynnwood’s size too much for Mt. Spokane in 3A girls

Lynnwood’s inside senior duo of 6-foot-1 Kelsey Rogers and 5-11 Kaprice Boston was too much for Mt. Spokane as the Royals defeated the Wildcats 57-46 at Bothell High and reached the Tacoma Dome for the fourth consecutive season.

Rogers scored 22 points and Boston 19 to lead Lynnwood.

The loser-out game pitted the sixth-ranked Royals (20-4), third in 3A state last season, against the eighth-ranked Wildcats (19-6), fifth in 2016 in 3A.

“If you’re going to go down, do you want to go down fighting or do you want go just go home? We want to fight and they fought like crazy and got within four (at 50-46 on Aspyn Adams’ three-pointer with 2:43 left). I don’t know what happened after that,” Mt. Spokane coach David Pratt said.

“We fought though and I’m so proud of their effort. They gave me everything they had.”

Lynnwood built a 47-30 lead heading into the fourth quarter, but the Wildcats rallied within 50-46 on the strength of a 14-2 run to start the fourth. Mount Spokane’s pressure defense forced the Royals into three successive turnovers during one stretch, but the Royals survived and finished on a 7-0 surge.

“We didn’t make shots. We missed easy shots that we normally make. We missed some free throws. We missed some chippies. That’s hard for us to take as we don’t do that. And, it just dug us a little hole,” Pratt said.

“Obviously, we came out of it.”

Lynnwood moves on and gets a first-round, loser-out game against Gig Harbor (21-3) on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. in the Tacoma Dome.

Rogers was a force inside for the Royals, ringing up 14 points as her team built a 29-23 halftime lead and led by as many as 10 points before the break.

“I think Rogers is a heckuva player,” Pratt said. “She killed us in the first half. She didn’t do as much in the second half, but she killed us in the first half. We didn’t recover from that. We rebounded well when they missed. We did a nice job there, but she did a nice job inside.”

Mount Spokane sophomore Adams, who led the Greater Spokane League in scoring at 18.0 points per game, led the way in the first half with eight points. Miahna Waters added seven points in the first half and finished with 17 points.

Adams finished with 13.