By Ed Shepherd
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT

The Evergreen and Tyee girls basketball teams played with a good beat throughout the game despite the final score favoring the Wolverines, 50-7, over the visiting Totems on Friday.

It was both teams' opening Seamount League games this season, so the Wolverines moved to 1-0 while the Totems dropped to 0-1.

"Good opening, good assessment," said Wolverines coach Natasha Hicks-McCray. "And Tyee played with a lot of heart. They played hard throughout the game, impressive, until the end."

Definitely not going down as the most competitive game in high school sports history, but both teams, not just the Wolverines, went at each other, fighting for the ball, scrambling for rebounds, the whole game. And that's despite the score being, 19-3, Wolverines after the first quarter, with the Totems' lone points of the first eight minutes of play coming on senior point guard and captain MaryRose Cadelina knocking in a three-point shot off the glass in the waning seconds of the first quarter.

Really, the Totems showed some moments of brilliance defensively, keeping the Wolverines from scoring any points in the fourth quarter until only 55 seconds remained of it. And, earlier in the game, too, flashes, like, to start the second quarter, despite being down 16 points, the Totems remained scrappy and hustling and caused three turnovers on the Wolverines in the opening three minutes of the second quarter. No points to show for that defensive good work for the Totems, but Sierra Brooks, Maia Graham, Tatiyana Lafita, Houlaymatou Drammeh and Cadelina were playing with hands up and shuffling their feet and dancing, so to speak, to the beat of the Wolverines' offense moving the ball around the perimeter fluidly.

"We are going after it," said Totems coach Amanda Segerman, whose five players noted above doing a nice job defensively to start the second quarter are all underclassmen. And Segerman noted her team is really needing to work hard on things this season because of youthful reasons.

"All eight girls that you saw play in the game tonight have never played in a high school basketball game," said Segerman, who mentioned, too, that Cadelina did not play b-ball as a sophomore for the Totems but did as a freshman, so, she has played high school b-ball but not last year.

So that's a little tough adversity, one of inexperience to have to play around for Segerman's team. Regardless, the Totems did keep playing hard despite youthfulness and weathering non-stop scoring from the Wolverines, like Marleisha Cox, a 5-10 senior, who is a captain and forward/guard for her team. Cox led all scorers in the game with 19 points, including nine in the first quarter.

And, in the second quarter, the Wolverines increased the lead even more as Cox did a lot of the heavy hitting that frame, with scoring the Wolverines' first two buckets of the quarter with a short jumper inside the key, making it 21-3, and then, another shot in the paint, too, to make it 23-3 for the White Center area school.
"She's a quality kid, a person of character, puts in the work in practice, and it shows on the court in games," said Hicks-McCray.

So, with Cox doing damage early on, from there another senior, Danae Austin, a 5-4 guard, took over the scoring, making four shots in the middle section of the second quarter, staking the Wolveines to a 30-4 lead. Then Gloria Dabairi, a 5-4 sophomore, swished a three-point shot that made it a 33-4 lead for the home team. The Totems' lone point came from Cadelina, who was fouled on a three-point shot so she got three free throws, going 1-for-3 from the stripe.

Cadelina, really, did a good job controlling the basketball in this game as the team's play-maker, both dribbling the ball up the court after Wolverines' baskets and passing to teammates during the game. Cadelina scored all seven of her teams' points, too.

"I like carrying my team out there," said Cadelina. "We took it hard, played hard, and we played good defense, at times. It was our first league game. We just are not having our communication perfect, but we are working it out. I thank all the people for coming out to watch, for both teams. I know my teammates had to work hard in school today, but they came out and did a good job. We may not know all our plays, but we are going to pull it through."

Some hard luck shots in this game from a lot of Totems, who hit the rim on a number of occasions, following good entry passes from Cadelina, running the offense, the plays. But the Totems just did not get the ball to drop through the hoop much at all. And the Wolverines just kept scoring and scoring, finding the basket a friendly cylinder for them, getting to a 37-7 lead after Cox's last basket of the second quarter ushered in halftime, soon after.

Cox played up front some for her Wolverines' team, at forward, in the interior, fighting for rebounds in the paint, but her coach, Hicks-McCray, also let her orchestrate the offense, as guard, from the point, in this game.

"It was a challenge, being point guard," said Cox. "I think, our team is doing pretty good. We are all working together, learning each others' strengths."

In the second half, Hicks-McCray was working on her team's passing.

"Coming out to the second half, our approach was making five passes before shooting, working on our offense," she said. "At times, we executed that well. I would have liked to have seen better ball movement, but, overall, I was pleased with the team and how they are coming together."

Both programs have struggled in the past, as before last season's postseason qualification for the Wolverines they did not do as well for Hicks-McCray the previous three years of her time leading the team.
"We won one game my first year here, and, four my second, before making the playoffs last season," she said. "This is a good starting point this season, to see where we are at and reaching some of our goals."
So, a good game to build on?

"A great game to build on," said Hicks-McCray. "Great to see two teams working with heart."
Besides. Cox, with her 19 points, game-high scoring for the Wolverines, Austin chipped in nine points, Jvonne Hendricks' eight, Gloria Dabairi five, Maria Martinez five and Kindra Smith four.