Unbeaten Republic opens 1B Tournament with resounding win over Evergreen Lutheran

Evergreen Lutheran received an early morning wake-up call by Republic in the 9 a.m. opener of the State 1B girls basketball tournament Thursday at the Spokane Arena.

Six minutes into the contest the Eagles (17-9) trailed 21-1 and things didn’t improve as the Tigers cruised to a 64-34 triumph and a date at 3:45 this afternoon against Sunnyside Christian, whose 75-44 pasting of Crosspoint Academy that followed mirrored Republic’s romp.

The 25-0 Tigers’ transition game, fueled by Shania Graham, flustered Evergreen Lutheran, taking the Tacoma private school out of the game early. Graham got behind the defense for eight easy first-quarter points during the run.

After the Eagles made a run that cut the deficit to a still imposing 15 points midway through the second period, the Tigers closed out the half with an 11-1 spurt to make the second half anticlimatic. Evergreen Lutheran, behind 40-15 at intermission, didn’t get any closer.

“We try to pressure the ball,” Republic coach Ted Torzewski said of his team, which has but three seniors on the roster, with only Sierra McQuay a regular. “We wanted to pressure the ball and see if we could force some early turnovers and if we create turnovers we generally score off them.”

Defensively, the emphasis, he said, was to contain 6-foot Emily Holder, the team’s lone double-figure scorer, who averages 20.4 points per game.

“She’s basically most of their offense, so we had to make sure we kept her off the boards,” he said.

Holder finished with 13 points and three rebounds. Republic outrebounded the Eagles 38-31 as a team despite McQuay being its tallest player at 5-10.

Playing the early game was no hindrance to the Tigers. Torzewski and Graham both said that playing summer ball readied them for the eventuality.

“A lot of times we have morning practices,” said the coach. “We’ve had games at midnight and games at six in the morning.”

Graham, a sophomore, finished with 16 points. The inside duo of McQuay and sophomore Lily Beckwith contributed 14 and 10 points, respectively.

“Last year we lost the regional game,” Graham said. “Since then we wanted so badly to be in the Arena and we all pushed each other super, super hard. We like to run, definitely that’s our style.”

That’s Sunnyside Christian’s style as well. But Republic will also have to find a way to neutralize a team with three 6-footers on the court.