CENTRALIA — The Seton Catholic ladies basketball workforce received a spark from an surprising flip of occasions in Saturday’s Class 1A district championship sport.
When Seton’s Hailey Hammerstrom and Riley Seymer every picked up their fourth foul minutes aside within the third quarter in opposition to Montesano, sending the workforce’s beginning frontcourt to the bench, a hearth was lit beneath the Cougars.
Montesano led 28-24 on the 2:30 mark of the third quarter when Seymer subbed out, but the Cougars held the Bulldogs to simply 4 factors for the rest of the sport in an eventual 46-32 win at Centralia Excessive Faculty.
Seton Catholic claimed this system’s first district title in program historical past after shedding to Montesano within the 2023 and 2024 district championship video games. The Bulldogs had been denied a fifth consecutive district title.
“This win was pretty awesome,” Seton Catholic senior Remy Jenniges stated. “The last two years we’ve been on the losing side of it, so to be able to be down first half, come back, keep the energy up and just take it to them was awesome.”
One of many Cougars’ greatest strengths is their versatility, permitting them to combine and match totally different lineups with measurement and pace.
The Cougars’ speed-centric lineup of bench gamers Emma Whitehouse and CJ Moore, who joined starters Madison Lee, Tiffany Sheldon and Jenniges, turned out to be the Bulldogs’ kryptonite within the second half.
“Our bench has been playing really, really well,” Seton Catholic coach Phil Kent stated. “We have a unique bench where we can go a couple different ways — we can go big, we can go small, really fast. CJ Moore, Emma Whitehouse, Naomi Jackson, they all came in and just gave us great minutes off the bench.”
A once-struggling Seton offense led by Seymer’s 17 factors got here to life thanks, partially, to a stifling protection that overwhelmed the Bulldogs and led to frequent runs in transition.
“This season we’ve always said defense wins games and defense will offense,” Jenniges stated, “so we just kept to our fundamentals (and) played our hard man-to-man defense.”
The Cougars went on an 18-0 run to place the sport out of attain, beginning with a Lee jumper to shut the third quarter, adopted by a Jenniges 3-pointer to offer the Cougars a 31-30 lead lower than a minute into the fourth. Sheldon, Moore and Whitehouse all added baskets in the course of the stretch.
“It kind of almost felt like, with our best two bigs being out, someone had to pick it up,” Sheldon stated. “So, I feel like our energy was really good on our bench and team-wide. We just kept going.”
The lineup labored so nicely collectively that Kent elected to maintain them on the ground collectively till late within the fourth when Seymer subbed again in.
Montesano was held with out a level till the 1:43 mark of the fourth. Evanjillie Dalan led the Bulldogs with 16 factors.
“That was the story of the night — defense sparked our offense,” Kent stated. “Except for that first minute (of the first quarter) where we got some easy ones, the rest of the game we did not really shoot the ball well. But our defense turned into stops, transition points, easy buckets and that was the difference in the game.”
The Cougars now flip their consideration to the 1A state opening spherical, a stage they’ve performed on twice in as a few years, however have fallen shy of reaching the Yakima Valley SunDome as one of many remaining 12 groups. This yr, the Cougars plan on taking the following step.
“I’d say we’re really motivated — this is something we’ve been thinking about all year,” Lee stated.
With a district championship in hand, the Cougars have a really robust case for a top-eight seed, which might assure them a visit to Yakima. Seedings for the 1A state event can be launched Sunday.
SETON CATHOLIC 46, MONTESANO 32
SETON CATHOLIC (18-6) — Madison Lee 7, Kingsley Williams 0, CJ Moore 6, Naomi Jackson 0, Silvia Pujol 0, Remy Jenniges 6, Tegan Figueroa 0, Tiffany Sheldon 3, Emma Whitehouse 7, Hailey Hammerstrom 0, Riley Seymer 17. Totals 19 (3) 5-12 46.
MONTESANO (17-7) — Josie Forster 2, Jordyn Perry 0, Jordyn Wade 0, Tieander Olson 5, Hazel Jones 2, Makena Blancas 3, Ava Schrader 4, Evanjillie Dalan 16, Regan Wintrip 0, Ali Parkin 0, Paige Busz 0. Totals 13 (1) 5-16 32.
Seton Catholic 9 6 13 18—46
Montesano 8 12 10 2—32
