The Ridgefield Spudders girls basketball team is firing on all cylinders at the most important part of the season after three key wins in a row.
The Spudders closed off the third week of January with a massive win, delivering the Mark Morris Monarchs their first 2A Greater St. Helens League loss of the season with a 67-64 victory on Friday, Jan. 23. Next, the Spudders fended off the Hawks of Hockinson with a 67-32 win to stay at fifth place in the league standings on Wednesday, Jan. 28.
To conclude a crucial week, the Spudders overcame the ghosts of a prior 46-36 loss to the Washougal Panthers. On Friday, Jan. 30, Ridgefield turned the script on its head for a 60-33, commanding victory over Washougal to bump up to a tie in the league standings with a favorable road to conclude the season this week.
The Panthers will have to face the first-seeded Mark Morris Monarchs and sixth seed Hockinson Hawks while the Spudders have the bottom two teams left on the schedule in R.A. Long and Hudson’s Bay high schools.
“For us, all season it’s been a story of, ‘Can we shoot a better shooting percentage than we did last week?’” Spudders head coach Lauren Hefflin said after the win over the Hockinson Hawks. “... And then Friday (Jan. 23) we finally kind of broke through, we shot really well, and then it paid off. So I mean, if we can continue to play with the energy and the effort and then some shots fall, heck yeah.”
Entering the matchup against Mark Morris, the Spudders found themselves in quite the hole at 5-11 and 3-6 in league play. Now they are on the verge of breaking the .500 mark in the 2A GSHL.
“I knew exactly who they were the whole time,” Hefflin said about what the win against Mark Morris told her. “And I knew they had it in them. “
Hefflin added that keeping a team playing hard defense when the shots are not falling is hard. “We really pride ourselves on our defense, and when you’re not hitting shots, it’s hard to go down and fight on defense,” she said. “You have a different energy when you make a shot. So it’s just been that grind all season of if they’re going to fall.”
The Spudders will conclude the regular season with two road games, one against R.A. Long High School on Wednesday, Feb. 4, and Friday, Feb. 6, at Hudson’s Bay High School, both slated for 7 p.m.
For Hefflin, the slow-improving season has her feeling grateful her Spudders will get to see at least one postseason basketball game.
“We’re just grateful to continue to get days together,” she said. “This group loves each other and it’s different than it’s been as far as just our joy being around each other.”
The Hockinson Hawks will look to the postseason, as well, with at least entering as the sixth seed for the pigtail round in the District 4 2A tournament. The Hawks conclude their season with a home game against Columbia River High School on Wednesday, Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m. and a road affair to Washougal High School on Friday, Feb. 6, at 7 p.m.
The 2A District 4 girls basketball tournament is slated to begin on Wednesday, Feb. 11, with the pigtail round.
