Lake Washington stuns top-ranked Mead in 3A semifinals, but Kangs still hungry

TACOMA, Wash. -- Rosa Smith and Elise Hani did their best to hold back tears as they exited the locker room, the same one they left two years ago wondering if they'd ever get another opportunity to play for another championship. 

"The hunger for me -- personally, I didn't think it could get any greater," Hani said. 

"But I think it just got a little bit more." 

They had just finished erupting in celebration along the Lake Washington High School girls basketball team's sideline when Mead's last shot missed off the bottom of the rim and the fourth-ranked Kangaroos stunned No. 1 Mead 42-41 in the 3A state semifinals on Friday in the Tacoma Dome. 

This was a Mead squad that entered the game 23-0, had won every game by double digits and hailed from arguably the most prolific girls basketball region in the state over the past decade in the Greater Spokane League. 

Not that Lake Washington (20-4) had any doubt. 

"I'm so incredibly proud of my girls," Lake Washington coach Jeff Wilson said. "All season we told them they were good enough to win a state championship and we wanted them to believe in it. Tonight they showed that they can compete with anybody in the state. I'm so happy for them." 

Smith and Hani are two of only four returners from Lake Washington's title run two years ago, when it lost to Garfield in the championship. They had hoped to make a run last year before the pandemic led to the WIAA cancelling all postseason play. 

Now they get Garfield again in a rematch of the 2020 title game at 9 p.m. Saturday. 

"This is such a special opportunity," Smith said. "We're so excited to get back here. I haven't stopped thinking about it since two years ago." 

But it took Lake Washington staving off Mead's furious rally. 

The Kangaroos played a near flawless first half, with the 6-foot-4 Hani scoring 15 of her team-high 19 points and collecting eight rebounds on their way to a startling 27-11 first-half lead. 

Her presence defensively especially disrupted Mead, which made 3 of 22 shots (13.6 percent) in the first half.

"We rushed some shots," Mead coach Quantae Anderson said. "And we took some shots from super deep that we normally don't shoot. That's not what we practice. I think it was a bit of the moment and we allowed (Hani) to get to her safe space where she was really comfortable. It just took a while to get to where we were supposed to be." 

But when they got rolling, the Mead train was near unstoppable. 

Trailing 30-12 in the third quarter, the Panthers stormed back with their patented pressure defense. It was 42-33 when they forced Lake Washington to turn it over on four consecutive possessions, including Teryn Gardner's steal and fastbreak bucket followed by a five-second call. 

Gardner, a sophomore wing, scored a game-high 24 points and she scored on back-to-back possessions to cut the lead to four before Parker Brown sent Mead's bench into uproar with her finish of a three-point play, cutting the lead to 42-41 with 17.5 seconds left. 

Lake Washington's Paige Citron missed the front end of a one-and-one and Mead had the ball with 12.1 seconds to go with a chance to complete the come back. 

Anderson thought Gardner was fouled on the arm by Hani on her final shot when she cut backdoor for a layup attempt underneath the basket. But no call and Lake Washington's sideline erupted. 

"We fought as hard as we could fight until the end and that's what we preach -- play as hard as we can for as long as we can," Anderson said. "We had a shot at the end and I thought she got fouled. I'm a little biased but I saw it from my angle.

"But we did what we had to do to claw back. It says a lot about their heart and where they are as a team and trusting each other." 

Wilson, the Lake Washington coach, couldn't say enough, though, about the senior leadership of Hani and Smith. 

"(Hani) is incredible," he said. "Her length, athleticism, talent, her willingness to compete -- she has changed our program." 

She was the clear difference maker on the glass and altering Mead's shots and forcing them to play from behind the arc. 

"She's our rock," Smith said. "Just behind us on defense -- we're up playing pressure and we know Elise is behind us and she's got our backs. She's such a leader on and off the court. She's loud in the locker room. She's everything you could ask for in a captain." 

But it was also Smith's precise ball-handling, along with that of Rae Butler Wu, Jolie Sim and Paige Citron that kept Mead's typical relentless pressure at bay. 

"I've been coaching for 14 years now and I've never seen a guard be able to handle pressure like Rosa," Wilson said. "Her speed, her ability to change her pace -- she's an incredible senior leader." 

---TJ Cotterill; @TJCotterill.