WIAA 2A girls basketball medal roundup: Top-seeded Lynden pulls away from Ellensburg to repeat as champion

Tournament MVP Finley Parcher tallies 14 points, 10 rebounds and Payton Mills adds 12 points, 14 rebounds, and No. 1 Lions pull away from second-seeded Ellensburg in matchup of unbeatens

Lynden players celebrate winning the 2A girls state basketball championship game against Ellensburg on Saturday night at the Yakima Valley SunDome in Yakima, Wash. / Evan Abell/Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA, Wash. – Back-to-back championships for top-seeded Lynden started to take shape when, well, Ellensburg took shape.

No. 2 Ellensburg went into a triangle-and-two to try to limit the Lions star tandem of sophomore Finley Parcher and junior Payton Mills. But Lynden was more than ready for the scheme, having practiced how to attack the defense.

“Since about Christmas, we’ve been getting ready for the triangle-and-two,” Lynden coach Rob Adams said. “We had some games during the regular season when they were blowouts, where teams tried the triangle on us and I was like, ‘Nope. We’re not going to run it, we’re not going to run it,’ because we might need it at a time where somebody who’s watched film isn’t ready for it.”

That time was Saturday night.

While Parcher, who was voted the tournament MVP, and Mills, last year’s MVP, had solid games, they weren’t necessarily spectacular, at least statistically.

“I thought Finley and Parcher did a tremendous job letting the game come to them” Adams said. “They really impacted the game by not scoring.”

Instead, their teammates accounted for 28 points and five 3-pointers, many both coming from the Lions’ remedy for a triangle-and-two.

Parcher finished with a team-best 14 points and 10 rebounds, while Milles notched 12 points and 14 rebounds for Lynden (28-0).

Lexi Hermanutz chipped in 10 points for the Lions.

Ellensburg’s all-state point guard Jamison Philip tallied a game-high 16 points, eclipsing the 1,000-point mark. Bella Standish totaled 14 points and eight rebounds.

The Bulldogs (27-1) set a school record in wins, but again fell in the final to the Lions, who snapped Ellensburg’s 75-game winning streak last March.

Third/fifth: No. 2 R.A. Long 68. No. 5 Selah 61

Fourth/sixth: No. 11 Columbia River 78, No. 8 Mark Morris 59

SATURDAY'S OTHER MEDAL GAMES

Third/fifth: No. 1 Deer Park 52, vs. No. 6 Prosser 50

Fourth/sixth: No. 5 Archbishop Murphy 62, No. 4 W.F. West 50