(Fourth-quarter 3-pointer by #4 Kelsey Lenzie, who had both of WSHS’s threes tonight)

FIRST REPORT, 10:43 PM: The West Seattle High School girls’ sterling season has one more game to go – but it’ll be for state 3A third place instead of first, after their 55-46 loss to Gig Harbor at the Tacoma Dome minutes ago. Photos and full details of tonight’s game after we get back to HQ; Saturday’s game will be here at 1 pm against Stanwood.

(WSB photos by Patrick Sand)

ADDED 1:30 AM: What the Wildcats ran up against on Friday night was a team that managed to play more of the game on its own terms, not West Seattle’s. All season long, the West Seattle girls have mostly run opponents ragged. And when they got the Tides going that way tonight, they gained ground – but not enough to overcome a deficit that piled up early.

#20 Grace Sarver (13 points, 5 rebounds) opened the game with a basket that put West Seattle on top 2-0 – their only lead of the game. The Tides played a slower, wait-for-the-opening type of basketball, and extended the lead to 13-2 before the Wildcats got their next points. The first quarter ended with Gig Harbor leading 16-7.

Though the Tides’ defense didn’t have the up-close intensity of their opponents, they seemed to capitalize on almost every slipup, and even found opportunities in routine West Seattle moves, like long passes – somehow a Gig Harbor player would materialize in the path of the pass and swat it away.

The Tides netted the first four points of the second quarter and things looked a little grim until #32 Meghan Fiso (12 points, 12 rebounds) matched those four points, followed by one of Lenzie’s two 3-pointers, narrowing the gap to 20-14. The Tides’ star performer #10 Brynna Maxwell quickly tossed in one of her own. (Gig Harbor out-tripled West Seattle, 6 to 2, more than accounting for the point-total spread.)

(#11 Jasmine Gayles, 11 points, 4 rebounds)

At this point, WSHS got the game going faster, but GH was outrebounding the Wildcats and just didn’t let them get on a roll. They were still seven points back at halftime, 25-18.

As she had done at the start of the game, Sarver got the first points of the second half, a field goal narrowing the gap to 25-20. They battled to shave that a bit by 5:18 to go in the third, when it was 30-26. And a Fiso basket got the Wildcats to within two at 2:37 left in the third, 32-30. That was as close as they got; Gig Harbor added five points in the next minute-plus. Fiso also had the quarter’s final basket, sending the game into the 4th with Gig Harbor still ahead, 37-32.

The final quarter started with intensified defense from West Seattle, as the girls knew they had to not only start outscoring the Tides to have a chance, but also had to put a lid on them. It looked good for a bit … but the Tides refused to be stifled, and the Wildcats didn’t get any closer than a five-point margin, twice, before the quarter’s midpoint.

Fouls cost West Seattle too, even before the final moments where the trailing team is all but obliged to foul. GH #33 Maddie Willett sank four foul shots in relatively rapid succession.

There was a momentarily thrilling flash of comeback hope around the two-minute mark, when Lenzie’s second 3-pointer cut the lead in half, 47-44. But Gig Harbor got two fast baskets, followed by two foul shots, and led by 9 with less than a minute to go.

A basket by #21 Julianna Horne concluded the WSHS scoring, and then it was over – Gig Harbor heading to the title game vs. Garfield, West Seattle bound for the third-place contest. But keep in mind – tonight’s game was the furthest they’ve gone in their three trips to state over the past four years.