Lady Eagles fall to Spartans

It’s likely that Arlington hoops coach Nathan Davis will be able to count the number of times his girls are outrebounded on one hand this season. One of those fingers, however, will represent Stanwood’s 67-53 victory over the Eagles, Dec. 8, in a Wesco North game.

STANWOOD — It’s likely that Arlington hoops coach Nathan Davis will be able to count the number of times his girls are outrebounded on one hand this season.

One of those fingers, however, will represent Stanwood’s 67-53 victory over the Eagles, Dec. 8, in a Wesco North game.

“That’s the first time this year it’s happened,” said Davis, whose girls were outdone on the glass 31-25 against the Spartans to open Wesco North play. “And it was the second chances that killed us.”

Davis was specifically referring to the second half, when Stanwood went on runs of 14-6, and 9-2 to put the game away. Those stretches were filled with Spartan offensive rebounds, which led to a flurry of long-range points. During those stretches Stanwood hit four of its seven total 3-pointers.

Hitting four of those threes was junior guard Renee Lucero, who finished with 20 points.

“Lucero hit some big threes that really opened things up for them,” said Davis. “It kind of threw us out of rhythm.”

The Eagles stayed with the Spartans in the first half, and even owned a 20-15 advantage midway through the second quarter. But Stanwood finished strong with 10 unanswered points to earn a 27-22 lead.

The loss drops Arlington to 3-1 overall on the season.

“I thought we played great defense, particularly in the first half,” Davis said.

But Stanwood changed the tempo of the game almost from quarter to quarter, utilizing full-court pressure most of the time, to throw Arlington out of sync.

Davis praised the play of juniors Megan Abdo and Kaiti Ferro, who also happened to be the Eagles’ top scorers. Abdo led Arlington with 14 points while Ferro added 11.