4A/3A Regional Day 1 Headlines!

Most of the regional playoff games in high school hoops takes place on Saturday (2/23), but there was exciting matchups in the 3A and 4A playoffs on Friday as well. Two main storylines came out of day one. 4A Woodinville vs. Eastlake was surprise number one for the day and 3A Mt. Spokane vs. Bethel gave us storyline number two. <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline">4A Woodinville vs. Eastlake: Keeli Burton's dominance!</span></strong> The most exciting matchup of 4A took place on Friday and turned out to be a different result than some people may have thought. In the two previous matchups, the teams split wins. The two KingCo teams know each other very well and Eastlake seemed to be a little more locked in on the third game of the season. 2020 6'3 P <strong>Keeli Burton</strong> was absolutely dominant in Eastlake's 63-54 victory. The Arizona State commit ended with 28 points and 18 rebounds. Despite 25 points from 2021 5'10 C <strong>Mia Hughes</strong>, Woodinville could not close the gap too much. That was maybe the most surprising thing about the game was how Eastlake controlled from start to finish. It is no shock that Eastlake won, but there were minimal lead changes. Woodinville will now have to play 4 games in 4 days to make it to the state final and they would meet Kentridge in the quarter finals. Eastlake gets an automatic placement in the quarter finals with their win. <span style="text-decoration: underline"><strong>3A Mt. Spokane vs. Bethel: The blowout</strong></span> Bethel was riding LOTS of momentum coming into this game. They won their district championship beating #1 ranked Prairie along the way. They did not only beat Prairie, they swarmed them with their press and won by 15. Bethel would go on to beat #5 Peninsula in the District Championship. Mt. Spokane came into the game winning their District Championship over Kamiakin in much sloppier fashion, winning 46-45. From the very get go, Mt. Spokane dominated this game and put the pressure on Bethel, which is the opposite of what many people thought would happen. Bethel is known for its aggressive defense, but could not get the momentum rolling in this one. 2021 PG <strong>Esmerelda Morales</strong> was coming off of multiple games scoring near 30 points and had just four at half time. 2020 5'9 G <strong>Tiarra Brown</strong> has been a consistent producer all season long, but ended the game with just 4 points. The defense by Mt. Spokane's 2020 5'11 G <strong>Jayda Noble</strong> was spectacular and she also pulled down 15 rebounds, to go along with 10 points. 2019 5'8 G <strong>Aspyn Adams</strong> led the way for Mt. Spokane with 20 points. Bethel will play in a loser out game on Wednesday and Mt. Spokane will receive a bye in the first round of state.