2A Prep Girls Basketball: Late rally pushes Woodland past Mark Morris
Long Range — Lainey Haden hits seven 3-pointers in Beavers' 61-54 victory at MM
Drew Lawson for Blast Zone Media
BAKAMUS GYMNASIUM — The league’s leading scorer was sitting on the bench in foul trouble. The Monarchs were hitting threes left and right, and Mark Morris’s lead only grew in front of its home fans in the second and third quarters.
That didn’t matter to Lainey Haden, though. Her career-high 23 points kept Woodland’s offense afloat and then, together with that aforementioned league-leading scorer — Kennedy Bockert — and the rest of her Beaver compadres, helped the visitors steal a 61-54 victory from the jaws of defeat at Ted Natt Court, Tuesday..
Woodland’s second-half deficit was as large as 13 points, and was still stuck at 10 points entering a fourth quarter. And that Mark Morris feeling swell about its odds to draw even in the 2A Greater St. Helens League standings with the second-place Beavers.
But a 23-6 outburst in the fourth quarter ruined a good time for the hosts. Instead, the win for the Beavers solidified two-game advantage over the Monarchs in the league standings, and kept Woodland just one game back of league-leading Columbia River with four games remaining in the regular season.
“If we would’ve lost, we’d have had to get some help, so now if we can just take care of business, we’ll hopefully be in it for a league championship at the end, a rematch,” Woodland head coach Glen Flanagan said, referring to the last game of the season at River on Feb. 6.
The Beavers previously defeated Mark Morris 58-46 at home back in early December. If the two teams are to meet up again it will be in the playoffs.
“We have a lot of basketball to play, but you can’t win them all if you don’t win the next one,” Flanagan added.
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