OLYMPIA — Wednesday night’s game was pivotal for the Olympia Bears.
The girls knew that a win over the Spanaway Lake Sentinels would give them a cushion in the driver’s seat of the South Puget Sound League South division, with Bonney Lake and Spanaway Lake hot on their tails.
A loss would send Olympia to third place with no more opportunities to face the Sentinels in the regular season and one more shot at the Panthers.
Fortunately for head coach Dustin Workman and his team, they don’t have to worry about the latter scenario.
The Bears took care of business against Spanaway Lake 53-40 at home Wednesday behind 24 points from junior Sawyer Schaff. They now control their own destiny toward a second straight division title.
Olympia is finding its groove after a 4-6 start to the 2025-26 campaign, winning six of its last seven.
“We started off slow, and we really only have two returning varsity players,” Workman said. “There was a lot of growth that was going to have to happen in that first week or two.”
Spanaway Lake coach Bryan Lowney yelled to his team to “know where 10 is” early in the game, but even if the Sentinels knew where 10 was, 10 was still a force on offense. Schaff scored eight points in the first three and a half minutes as Olympia sprinted to a 10-1 lead to force a Sentinels timeout.
“She’s such a good offensive player. Her aggressiveness willed us through the first quarter and even the first half when we were struggling offensively,” Workman said of Schaff.
Spanaway Lake found some life late in the first quarter, knocking down a pair of 3-pointers to enter the second quarter only down by two. Schaff was responsible for 11 of the Bears’ 13 first-quarter points, nailing all three of her 3-point attempts.
“My 3s were on to start this game. That got us started in the first quarter,” Schaff said.
Spanaway Lake took its first lead of the game in the first 12 seconds of the second period, and the two SPSL foes went back and forth trading leads before the Bears closed out the first half on a 12-3 run to separate themselves by eight at halftime.
Schaff only scored three in the second quarter, but Olympia found some offense through Brooke Juergens and Hazel Emmans. The attention that Schaff brought on offense opened up looks for other contributors.
Olympia took a nine-point advantage early in the third, but the Sentinels continued to float around. Spanaway Lake even got to within two points with two minutes left in the third, and the Bears responded with clutch layups by Schaff and Faith Smith, as well as a Juergens triple late in the frame.
After Spanaway Lake outscored Olympia 18-16 in the third to cut the margin to six, the Bears clamped down on defense, only allowing three points in the last eight minutes. Schaff and Junie Hanson put the game away by scoring eight of the Bears’ 10 fourth-quarter points.
“I thought the girls did a good job of staying the course, battling and competing against their athleticism,” Workman said. “Eventually, we just made them pay.”
One of the biggest differences in the fourth quarter came down to rebounding, as Spanaway Lake had hurt the Bears in the first 24 minutes on the offensive glass and second-chance buckets.
During a fourth-quarter timeout, Workman pressed his team to box out, and they responded.
“They got a lot of easy rebounds and putbacks and cherry-picks off of us. Stopping them from rebounding and taking care of the ball more helped us,” Schaff said.
Schaff finished with a game-high 24 points on 10 of 16 shooting, including 3 of 5 from behind the arc.
“I think my shot has definitely gotten better outside of the mid-range area. My 3s have been dropping,” Schaff said. “Also, I’ve always been an inside slasher, so that’s been working for me.”
Hanson added 12 points on 5 of 9 shooting, and Juergens contributed eight points with a pair of triples that came in clutch moments when the margin was being squeezed.
Olympia (10-7, 9-3 SPSL) is now perched comfortably in first place in the SPSL South, with Bonney Lake sitting at 8-4 and Spanaway Lake now 7-5 in league play. The Bears welcome Bonney Lake in another crucial game Friday night.
“We’ve got to make sure that we’re super prepared for Friday. If we can take care of those guys on Friday, that’s gonna give us a big boost in the South,” Workman said.
