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Morin can't save Grizz By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings The road to state just got longer for the Grizzlies. The North Medford High girls basketball team withstood the best of Marla Morin and beat the Ashland Grizzlies 48-43 Friday night to seize the Southern Oregon Conferece's No. 2 playoff seed and knock Ashland down to No. 3. Morin finished with 27 points and 12 rebounds - both game highs - but her Grizzly teammates added just 16 points, as North Medford escaped Mountain Avenue gym with a rugged, hard-fought victory in the regular season finale for both schools. "I was dumb enough to make a prediction (that) we could be playing for the conference title this year," North Medford coach Tim Karrick quipped. "We were close, didn't quite do it, but we'll take second." Ashland High senior post Marla Morin shoots over North Medford sophomore post Michelle Westermann during Southern Oregon Conference basketball action Friday night at Mountain Avenue gym. Ashland Daily Tidings/CHRIS MILLER The two teams finished tied for second place in the final league standings at 10-4, but North grabbed the No. 2 seed by virtue of its season sweep of Ashland. North (15-9 overall), which finished in a three-way tie for last place just a year ago, now needs just one win - March 1 against a playoff team to be determined - to advance to the Class 4A state tournament, while Ashland (17-7), the SOC's third-place team, must win Feb. 27 at home and March 1 on the road to do the same. "We'll take Saturday and Sunday off, then we'll come back with a fresh mind and go get ready for whoever we play," Ashland High coach Steve Humann said. Two days after blistering Crater for 22 points and 15 rebounds, Morin was unstoppable again, but North's Anna Lilly (17 points, six assists, four steals), Kerstin Mellbye (11 points, eight rebounds) and Kailey Bostwick (10 points) combined for 38 points in a more balanced performance. Lilly (junior wing), Mellbye (senior post) and Bostwick (sophomore point guard) also spearheaded a defensive masterpiece that held the SOC's top offense to 28 percent shooting (15-for-53). Ashland did get solid all-around games out of senior post Julia Sobolik (eight boards, four steals) and sophomore guard Hilary Huyett (five assists, four boards), just not much in the way of scoring. Huyett, who entered the game averaging over 16 points per game, was held to four, including a meaningless 3 at the buzzer. "We proved against Crater that we are a physical team and we were physical tonight, but there's a limit to how physical we can get," Humann said. Lilly's fastbreak lay-in with 5:10 left in the third gave the Black Tornado a 28-26 lead which they built to 34-28 by the end of the quarter. They pushed that lead to 10 (38-28) early in the fourth before Ashland started going back in to Morin. By then it was too late. Morin, who scored just two points in the third on limited opportunities, banked the next seven Grizzly points, but it wasn't enough to get Ashland over the hump. She cut the lead to as low as four twice - first with 1:48 to go on a pair of free throws, then with 56 seconds left on a hook shot. The Tornado answered each time, with sophomore point guard Jennifer Standifer applying the dagger by sinking a pair of free throws to give North a 46-40 lead with 49.2 seconds left. Fittingly, Ashland's last gasp ended with the rim rattling and the Ashland bench groaning - this after Huyett's 3-point miss with 36 seconds left. "We weren't executing our offense as well as we could have," Sobolik said. "The screens weren't there. I don't think we were running it as clean and efficient, but they have a good defense. They 'D' it up." In a battle between the conference's No. 1-ranked offense (Ashland) and No. 2-ranked defense, the latter won hands down. Ashland, which entered the game averaging 55 points per SOC contest, was held to 13 points in the middle two quarters and 1-for-11 shooting from beyond the arc, where they usually excel. And North's on the ball pressure only got better (and more physical) as the game went on, hounding the Grizzlies into a nightmare 5-for-29 second-half shooting performance that allowed the Tornado take an early third-quarter lead and run with it. "Our pressure on the guards," said Karrick flatly, when asked what the key was to his team's lock-down. "You know, they don't feel comfortable shooting with that kind of pressure on them and Marla got her points, and she had a great game, but I think for two games now (against Ashland) their guards have not been near their average in scoring and that has really been the difference. "(Morin's) going to get her points, she's a great player. We just had to keep the rest of them from getting their points and we did a good job of that again tonight." When North's defensive gem was complete, only Morin tallied more than six points for the home team. "It was a pretty low scoring game � so I think it was just both teams playing really good defense," Morin said. North took an early 11-7 lead but the Grizzlies came roaring back with a 13-0 run to go up 20-11. Most of that rally came with Mellbye sitting on the bench after collecting her second foul two minutes into the game. No matter. North leaned on its defense for the first half's last six minutes and the result was a 13-4 sprint of their own that left the two teams tied, 24-24, at the break. Mellbye was a big part of that charge after she re-entered the game with 6:58 to go in the half, scoring five in the second. "I didn't want to back off," she said, "I just needed to be more cautious of where I'm putting my hands." Morin was disappointed with the result, but not the effort. "We worked really hard," she said, "and we can't be ashamed of working hard." 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