Apollos take out Irish in 6A playoff opener 46-43

Sunset gets 19 points from Laura Stanulis in beating Sheldon’s girls on Tuesday

The Beaverton Valley Times, Feb 26, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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EUGENE – The Metro League’s No. 3 playoff seed has served the Sunset girls basketball team well, and Tuesday was no exception.

A season after reaching the state semifinals, the Apollos started another run as the third-place team out of the Metro by rallying to beat Sheldon on the road 46-43 in Tuesday’s first round game in the Class 6A state playoffs.

The victory improved No. 6-ranked Sunset to 15-9 on the season and advanced the Apollos to the second round where they’ll play at No. 5 Central Catholic, the Mount Hood Conference champ, at 7 p.m. Friday.

“We finally played defense, we finally played with a sense of urgency the final five minutes,” said Sunset coach Bill Priester.

To get there, Sunset had to get past Sheldon of Eugene, the Southwest Conference’s No. 2 seed. And the Apollos did so despite trailing 37-32 on the road heading into the third quarter before going on a 10-2 run to fuel the comeback.

Senior Laura Stanulis led Sunset with 19 points, including two with 0:56 left in the game for the Apollos’ first lead of the second half.

After Sheldon scored, junior post Samantha Potter scored on a layin to give Sunset a 44-43 lead and Stanulis then came through with three huge plays. First, she stole a shot attempt right out of the hands of an Irish player. Next, she hit two free throws with 0.8 seconds left to make it 46-43. And finally, Stanulis dove on a loose ball and called a timeout to save possession and ice the victory.

“The troops rallied and Lauramade some huge plays,” Priester said.

Andrea Anderson scored 11 points to pace the Irish, which finished the season at 12-12 overall.

Sunset led 11-6 after one quarter but trailed 23-21 at halftime before the late rally to earn a spot against Central Catholic for a trip to the University of Portland’s Chiles Center and the state tournament, which begins Wednesday.

Sunset lost to the Rams in last year’s Class 6A third-place game, but beat them 45-29 in early December in the Nike Northwest Invitational at Southridge High School.