Anna and Bellevue caps perfect season with a state title

Bellevue point guard Anna Wilson drives up court against Arlington’s player in the 3A Girls title game

Matt Massey, seattletimes.com, March 5, 2016

Late Saturday night as top-ranked Bellevue secured the school’s second state title in girls basketball by cruising past Arlington, 69-40, in the Class 3A state title game at the Tacoma Dome.

The Wolverines, who claimed their second title in school history. They last won one in 1975.

“I’m so happy, because we’ve been working so hard all season and undefeated all season, so why give up now,”

“We have a lot of scorers on our team, and everywhere can score on our team so I wasn’t too worried about scoring.”

Bellevue (29-0) blew the game open with a 22-4 run to begin the second half that gave the Wolverines a 63-28 lead with 5:53 to play.

Bellevue reached the title game by winning what everyone was calling a championship-caliber semifinal Friday, turning back second-ranked Lynnwood 73-60 with a strong contribution from its bench.

On Saturday, Stanford women’s coach Tara VanDerveer was in the crowd watching Cardinal commit Anna Wilson, who finished with five points, six assists and five rebounds.

The Wolverines fell behind early 4-3 after starting the game 1 of 6 from the field, but went on a 5-0 run to take an 8-4 lead. That lead grew to 14-8 by the end of the first period as the Eagles never could find their shooting touch.

The Bellevue lead stretched to 22-8 with a 12-0 surge. 

Bellevue expanded its lead to 35-24 by halftime. 

The Wolverines closed out the half on a 6-0 run.

After going down 10 points midway through the second quarter, Arlington closed the gap to 29-24 with 2:09 to go in the first half.

The Eagles’ fullcourt pressure defense caused Bellevue fits in the first half, and the Wolverines turned the ball over 12 times in those two periods.

Before Saturday, the Wolverines won their only state title in girls basketball in 1975 when the state tournament included all classifications.

Bellevue finished fifth in 3A last season, third in 3A in 2014 and fifth in 3A in 2013.

“We’ve come up short every year and we’ve been working so hard this year to just finish, finally,” 

Arlington returned to the state title game for the second time in the last four years.

“It’s a magical season,” Eagles coach Joe Marsh said. “These (nine senior) girls for four years they got (to the state tournament), which is hard to do. Incredible.”