By John Leggett

Staff Writer

A resilient Bonney Lake High girls basketball squad earned a trip to the state Class 3A basketball tournament.

The Panthers dropped a first-round district game to Prairie High March 3, but bounced back against a physical Mount Rainier High group in a tight, thrill-packed tilt Friday afternoon that went into overtime. Bonney Lake eventually won 61-57 in the bonus period to earn the No. 3 seed from West Central District play.

Now, in the first round of the state tourney, the Panther girls will face 16-9 Seattle Prep out of the Mountain Division of the Metro League at 2 p.m. today, Wednesday.

Seattle Prep is carried mostly by the scoring of Kari Luttinen, a junior guard who led all scorers in the Metro League, averaging 19 points per outing. Seattle Prep’s rebounding is buoyed by starting center Carmen Robertson and starting forward Alexandra Claeys, both 6-foot, 1-inch seniors.

If Bonney Lake loses to Seattle Prep, the Panthers will play the loser of today’s noon pairing between Capital and Shadle Park of Spokane.

If Bonney Lake, now 17-5 overall, tops Seattle Prep it will swing to the winner’s side of the brackets and square off with the winner of today’s Capital/Shadle Park battle. Capital is a familiar foe, a team Bonney Lake beat in subdistrict play.

In Bonney Lake’s first game of the WCD tournament, Marcel Pounds’ reputation for lighting up opponents apparently preceded her. Prairie High defenders were clinging to her every step and Pounds was held scoreless in the first half.

“That is something that had not happened to Marcel all year long,” Panther coach Thomas Ostrander said. “Obviously when the opposition’s defense blanks your best scorer, that is going to throw any team out of its rhythm.” It did, as Pounds, who is the second-leading scorer among all 3A girls in the Puget Sound region, averaging 20 points per game, went on to score eight in the second half.

Pounds turned things around in the Panthers’ second district game Friday afternoon against Mount Rainier, accounting for 24 points.

In that game with the Rams, the outcome boiled down to the hustle and desire of Bonney Lake’s 6-foot junior post Rani Wiegand, who with three seconds remaining in regulation, brought down a carom off of a Pounds misfire and quickly put it back up and in, scoring the deuce that put the wild affair into overtime at 54 apiece.

In the four-minute extra frame both squads fought feverishly, but neither could get untracked until BLHS scored five unanswered points to go ahead 59-54, before the Rams scored on a 3-point basket to end their scoring at 57 points.

“I think these ladies are trying to give their coach a heart attack,” Ostrander said after the nailbiter. “I just hope we don’t have to play Mount Rainier at state, too, because they say it is very difficult to beat a good team three times and now we have beaten them in subs and districts.”

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