ARLINGTON — It’s a topsy turvy league out there, as Arlington boys basketball can attest.

After a rocky start, Arlington has won five league games this month. With a 51-49 come-from-behind win over league leaders Marysville-Pilchuck Jan. 24, Arlington showed anybody can beat anybody in Wesco North.

The Tomahawks took a 16-6 lead by the end of the first quarter, but Arlington outscored Marysville in each quarter afterwards. Arlington senior Tyler Busby turned it on in the second half, bumping up against the Tomahawks’ looming 6-8 post Spencer Elwell, forcing him into foul trouble en route to a 10-point second half. Busby drew Elwell’s fifth foul in the fourth quarter, scoring two points on a one-and-one.

“We talked about clamping down on No. 50 (Elwell),” said Arlington guard Cole Carpenter of the team’s halftime talk. “We talked about looks and motion. We went corner to corner and started getting looks.”

Carpenter, a presence in all four quarters of the game, helped seal the deal for Arlington. The Eagles, who hadn’t lead since it was 4-3 in the first quarter, retook the lead late in the third quarter with with a three-pointer from Carpenter and the go-ahead score from Lucas Larson. But M-P battled back for a tight fourth-quarter battle with three ties and three lead changes. Down their largest deficit of the quarter, 45-40, Carpenter got a basket and a foul for a three-point play that put Arlington within a possession of the lead.

Perfect free-throw shooting from that point on kept the tension in the gym at a fevered pitch as M-P guard Tyler Holm was 4-for-4 down the stretch. But Larson retied the game after Holm’s first pair of baskets and Carpenter matched Holm’s second pair with two free throws of his own to tie it up again, 49-49.

With 35 seconds left, Arlington had the ball and took time off the clock passing around their basket. With less than three seconds on the clock, Carpenter drove to the basket, scoring on a lay-in.

M-P got the ball with 1.2 seconds left on the clock, trying valiantly to force overtime.

The Tomahawks threw in to half court, a pass deflected out of bounds near the Marysville bench, this time with 0.4 seconds left. M-P forward Nick Forsythe threw in toward the hoop, looking for an alley oop to Holm, but the pass was low and the buzzer sounded.

“We battled, we just battled,” said Arlington coach Nick Brown.

Carpenter led Arlington with 18 points while Busby had 12 and Larson 10. Holm led the Tomahawks with 11 points.

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