The Evergreen girls basketball team still has its district championship.
Evergreen even got a home bi-district playoff game.
But the dream of a season came to an end Saturday night, one win short of reaching the Class 4A state tournament.
Mackenzie Schiltz made five 3-pointers and scored 19 points, leading Issaquah to a 57-29 victory over the Plainsmen in a bi-district playoff game.
For the Plainsmen, the result meant it was time to reflect on their season and think of the future.
“It still hasn’t sunk in yet, really,” senior Audrey Frazier said, referring to this year after she endured one win in the previous three seasons with the program. “It’s been a total turnaround. It’s too bad that we lost this game, but this season’s definitely something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
“All I can say is next year we’re coming back stronger,” said junior Shamerica Scott, who led Evergreen with 15 points and eight rebounds Saturday. “We’ll jump higher, we’ll run faster, and we’ll be stronger and we’ll be taller.”
Perhaps even healthier, too.
The Plainsmen were without leading scorer Justine Joudrey for Saturday’s playoff. She injured her elbow late in Thursday’s district championship victory over Skyview.
But it was more than her scoring that Evergreen missed against Issaquah, a team known for its full-court defensive pressure.
“We missed her ability to calm the team down and take control of the offense,” Evergreen coach Jay Foreman said. “No press has hurt us all season.”
He added, however, that Issaquah’s press was the best his team faced this year.
“I was afraid turnovers would kill us,” Foreman said, referring to the 29 his team committed, including 12 in the second quarter when Issaquah pulled away from the Plainsmen.
“We don’t face that type of pressure down here on a consistent basis,” the coach said. “They were tough.”
The Eagles could shoot, too. Through three quarters, Issaquah had made 19 of 35 from the floor. The Eagles finished the game at 50 percent.
Schiltz was 7 of 13, including 5 of 9 from 3-point range. She also had three steals.
Blaire Brady was 6 of 6 from the floor, including four 3-pointers, for her 14 points. She had six steals.
“Our defense was phenomenal,” Schiltz said. “When we play good defense, it reflects on the offensive side.”
Evergreen got scoring from four players in the first quarter, taking a 10-9 lead. But Issaquah would go on a 15-1 lead to take command.
“We had a very nice inspirational pre-game,” Foreman said. “The kids wanted to give it everything they had. The girls were fired up and ready. The defensive pressure just wore us down.”
Issaquah was upset early in its district tournament and had to fight its way back to get into this all-or-nothing playoff.
“Someone had to come through the loser’s bracket,” Schiltz said. “Why not us?”
Evergreen did not come from the loser’s bracket this year. Instead, the Plainsmen came from a perennial loser of a program.
That’s all in the past now.
Evergreen’s season came to an end, but the new philosophy of the program is just beginning.
