Wildcats beat Everett, force tie-breaker | Girls basketball

The Oak Harbor High School girls basketball team hosts Everett at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, in a game to determine which club advances to the district play-in game.

The Oak Harbor High School girls basketball team hosts Everett at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, in a game to determine which club advances to the district play-in game.

The Wildcats eked out a 39-38 win at Everett Tuesday in the regular season finale, lifting Oak Harbor into a fourth-place Wesco North tie with the Seagulls.

The top four teams advance to the postseason; therefore, the two clubs need to meet again to determine who gets to move on.

The winner of the tie-breaker then hosts Edmonds-Woodway (11-9), the No. 4 team from the Wesco South, at 7 p.m. Thursday to decide the final seed into the district tournament.

The victory over Everett (3-7, 6-15) was the second consecutive one-point win for Oak Harbor (3-7, 7-13) in games it needed to win to keep its postseason hopes afloat.

Julie Jansen’s free throw in the final seconds proved to be the the difference in the comeback win.

Oak Harbor went up 8-6 in the first quarter, then went cold, scoring only one point in the second period and trailing 13-9 at halftime.

Both teams picked up their offense in the third quarter, and Everett led 28-25 heading into the final frame.

Oak Harbor tied the game at 33 midway through the fourth quarter on a bucket by Jansen.

A steal by Janae Payne led to a three-pointer by AnnaBelle Whitefoot, and the Wildcats led 36-33.

Everett countered with two hoops, one a three-pointer, to go up 38-36 with about two minutes left.

Another Payne steal set up a put-back basket by Deja Bunch that knotted the game at 38.

Everett called timeout with 11.6 seconds remaining. The Seagulls’ shot was off mark and Jansen was fouled with only 1.4 seconds left in the game.

Jansen sank the first of two foul shots to wrap up the win and force Everett to bus up to Oak Harbor the following night.

“Man, the seniors stepped up big time to close out the game,” coach Jon Atkins said.

Jansen and Bryn Langrock scored nine points, Bunch and Rashanna Graham six, Whitefoot five and Payne four.