State 2A girls: Deer Park defense forces 19 turnovers to beat W.F. West 56-45

YAKIMA – Faced with the specter of 6-foot-2 reigning Class 2A player of the year Julia Dalan on Thursday, the third-seeded Deer Park girls basketball team did what it’s done for the past few years – create chaos and feed off it.

The Stags forced 19 turnovers, including 13 steals, and Jacey Boesel and Brooklyn Coe provided the scoring punch with 20 and 18 points, respectively, to carry the Stags past W.F. West 56-45 in the State 2A quarterfinal round at the Yakima Valley SunDome.

Deer Park (25-0) advances to the semifinals to face the winner of Thursday’s late game between No. 2 Ellensburg and eighth-seeded Bainbridge in a semifinal at 9 p.m. Friday.

Three unbeatens could fill the semifinal round.

Ellensburg, champions in 2022 and ’23, took a 25-0 mark into its nightcap, and defending champion and top-seeded Lynden throttled No. 7 Columbia River 59-20 to improve to 26-0.

It’s the second consecutive semifinal berth for the Stags, who were edged by Nooksack in last year’s 1A championship game.

Deer Park learned early not to challenge Dalan too much. The University of Portland-bound standout blocked three shots in the opening minutes

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“We did this in summer playing against them, too, and she set a Gonzaga team camp block record,” Stags coach KC Ahrens said of Dalan.

No matter, you can’t stop what you can’t catch, and the Stags took several of their steals the other way before Dalan could get back to clog the middle.

“We fly around pretty good,” Ahrens said. “If we get into transition before she gets down there …”

While the Stags didn’t have a great night shooting – 35% from the field and 3-point land – Boesel and Coe connected enough to keep Deer Park comfortably ahead.

Boesel made 7 of 15 shots from the field and added a game-best 16 rebounds. Coe made 4 of 10 3-point attempts. Ashlan Bryant added 11 points for the Stags.

W.F. West scored the first six points while the Stags were being reacquainted with Dalan, who is at least 6 inches taller than each of their rotational players.

After that, Deer Park settled in by making the Bearcats unsettled.

The Stags took a six-point lead into halftime, and pushed it to 12 early in the third quarter. Deer Park led by as many as 16.

Dalan finished with 14 points and a game-best 11 rebounds.