Eastlake Wolves freshman Keeli Burton dominated the action in the paint against the Skyline Spartans girls basketball team in the regular season finale.
Burton, who finished with a team-high 20 points, led the Wolves to a convincing 64-50 win against the Spartans on Feb. 3 in Sammamish. Eastlake clinched the No. 3 seed to the Class 4A KingCo playoffs with the victory. Skyline will be the No. 4 seed at the Class 4A KingCo tournament. Eastlake had a paltry 14-9 lead at the end of the first quarter, but outscored Skyline 23-10 in the second period en route to an 18-point lead at halftime. Wolves’ junior point guard Gina Marxen, who scored 13 points, said having Burton’s presence in the post is an amazing advantage.
“It is really nice to have a true post in there. Not many people on other teams can guard her. Even if they are taller, she can still shoot over them,” Marxen said.
Burton scored 10 of the Wolves 23 points in the second quarter of play.
“We just felt like Keeli was a dominating presence,” Wolves head coach Sara Goldie said. “She was posting up really hard and she really wanted the ball. It took a little bit of time for our perimeter players to recognize that she wanted the ball bad and she was owning the space in there. She had a lot of success in the first half,” Goldie said.
The Wolves held the Spartans to a mere 29 points in the first three quarters of the contest. Marxen said Eastlake’s game-plan was predicated on slowing down Skyline star player Jade Loville. Loville finished with 18 points in the loss for Skyline.
“I think the difference was just defensive pressure. Jade is obviously someone we needed to cover on every play. We rotated a lot of different players to guard Jade. That was one of the keys to the game,” Marxen said.
Goldie was thrilled her squad finished the regular season with a victory in preparation for the KingCo tournament.
“It was a big deal for us. We’ve played in some close games this year and didn’t finish the way we wanted to. It was nice to be able to finish strong. KingCo is such a great league. Skyline is a tough team. Getting this win is a big deal going into playoffs,” she said.
Despite the loss, Skyline head coach Stacie Erfle is confident her team will be ready for the KingCo playoffs this week. The Spartans got on track in the final eight minutes of regulation, outscoring the Wolves 21-14.
“We knew this game was going to be a battle. We are both locked at the 3 and 4 seed for a reason. I thought that this was a game to get us ready for the playoffs. Eastlake is such an incredible team. We made a little run at the end there which gave us some momentum at the end of the game,” Erfle said.
