Trojan Grit Grinds Out Win

Mt. Vernon, WA – Everett Women's basketball traveled to the host Cardinals of Skagit Valley College Wednesday night and earned a hard fought one point win.  Coming off of the big 20 point win over Olympic Saturday night, the Cardinals featured a much stouter defense, and it was evident in the first quarter when the Trojans could only muster 9 points on 4 of 14 shooting and suffered from 7 turnovers.  Despite the struggles on the offensive end, Everett played solid defense in their own right and held Skagit to 12 points in the first quarter.  That would be the highest quarterly point total of the game for the Cardinals.

Things would get worse before they would get better for the EvCC offense and the shooting woes continued in the 2^nd quarter as well going just 2-16 from the field and mustering only four points with five turnovers.  Once again however the defense kept the game from getting out of hand and Everett went into the half trailing by just seven. 

The Trojans really showed their grit and resiliency in the second half.  After Skagit stretched the lead out to 11 with four minutes to play in the 3^rd, Everett responded with a 6-0 run to close out the quarter.  The fourth quarter started with the Trojans down five, and Sydney VanNess drained a three on the first possession to cut the lead to two.  After a Skagit bucket, Mikail Montez responded with a three of her own, and the deficit was cut to one. 

With under two minutes to play, Everett took their first lead of the game on a Courtney Perry layup to make it 34-33, but Skagit got it back with under a minute to play to go back up by one.  Everett called a timeout with 34 seconds remaining to draw up a play.  After the play broke down, a savvy second timeout was called to preserve the possession with sixteen seconds remaining. 

With the Cardinals playing zone, Mikail Montez received a pass inside, and made a nice feed to Courtney Perry who converted on the layup to go back up by one. 

Skagit had one last possession to win the game, but Sydney VanNess stepped up to take critical charge and secured the comeback win. 

Sydney VanNess led all scorers with 14 points.  Courtney Perry finished with 9 points and pulled down a season high 13 rebounds.  Mikail Montez chipped in 7 points and pulled down 11 rebounds. 

Everett will play their next game on Saturday at Bellevue.  Tip-off is set for 2:00pm.