Prairie's Brooke Walling shoots the ball while under pressure from Edmonds-Woodway defenders during the 3A Hardwood Classic at the Tacoma Dome on Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019. (Nathan Howard/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
TACOMA — Hala Corral wasn’t sure if her seniors knew they’d never won a game in the Tacoma Dome, so she didn’t say anything about it to her team.
Turns out, she didn’t need to. They knew.
The top-seeded Prairie girls basketball team hit 11 3-pointers to beat 15-seed Edmonds-Woodway 58-39 in the 3A state quarterfinals on Thursday morning.
Afterward Corral, the Falcons’ head coach, and the rest of her team who have fallen short in years past, breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Monkey’s off,” Corral said. “We’re not done. Our goal isn’t to just win one game but it’s big to get this one game.”
Brooke Walling led all scorers with 21 points, Kendyl Carson added 12 points to lead the Falcons. Edmonds-Woodway was paced by Rebekah Dasalla’s 16 points.
Prairie’s double-digit lead after three quarters grew to 19 in the fourth. The Warriors showed life late with a string of 3s, but Prairie’s Alli Corral and Mallory Williams hit 3s to keep them at bay.
Edmonds-Woodway deployed a modified zone that featured steady, disruptive pressure to the Falcons’ best shooter, Portland State commit Cassidy Gardner.
Gardner scored two points, but junior Kendyl Carson stepped in to attack the holes Prairie had scouted in the Warriors’ defense.
“You can’t guard that,” Corral said. “(Carson) does things that other kids can’t do. She has a really high basketball IQ, but to catch and attack and have a mid-range game, there’s very few kids who have a midrange game and she has it. It was a big factor.”
Walling hit three of her five 3s in the first quarter and Prairie led by just two at halftime. But the Falcons erupted to outscore the Warriors 20-11 in the third quarter. They were 7 of 13 from deep in the second half, which has not been the case in recent years as Prairie has struggled to shoot in the Tacoma Dome.
“Last year we couldn’t hit anything that first game, but we’ve been really focusing getting up shots and seeing the ball go through the net,” Walling said.
Mallory Williams hit both her 3-pointers in the second half.
The Falcons face a quick turnaround before playing 4-seed Kamiakin in the semifinals at 3:45 p.m. on Friday.
But to get the first win, they said, is deeply satisfying.
“It’s awesome,” Walling said. “It’s one of many that we’re hoping to get. So we’ve got to keep going.”
Added junior Alli Corral: “It definitely controls our nerves down to know that we’re meant to be here.”
