Walsh leads offensively and defensively, Anderson seals Madison’s round-one win

NAMPA — Riding a dominant defensive effort, Madison High School opened the 6A Girls Basketball State Championship with an upset victory over Eagle Thursday at the Ford Idaho Center.

The Bobcats used an especially impressive 12-2 second quarter to seize control of the game and grab a lead they would never relinquish en route to a 48-45 win.

Head coach Luke Sutton was candid after the game, admitting that his team may not be, on paper, the the best squad in the tournament. But the games, as the old cliche goes, are not played on paper.

“We’re not the most skilled team out here, but we’ve got to be one of the hardest-playing teams out there,” Sutton said. “We played a zone and everybody just sold out — they played hard as heck out there and that’s why we won: defense.”

Sutton described his team’s defense like that of a veteran boxer, using the first quarter to measure their opponents attack and time their counters.

In the second quarter, they used that information to jump Eagle’s passing lanes and tip countless passes.

“We got out hands on a ton of balls — in my opinion, a deflection is almost as good as a steal,” Sutton said.

No Madison player tipped more passes than center Mia Walsh, a two-time state volleyball champ.

Walsh finished the game with two steals, but forced several turnovers and even more held-ball jumpball calls. She also scored a game-high 19, to go with four rebounds and two assists.

“Mia is just a dawg,” Sutton said. “Some of these girls, Mia included, they’re coming off back-to-back volleyball state championships. They just know how to win. Mia, we needed every point she gave us, but some of her biggest contributions were just jumping some balls and getting some steals.”

Mia Walsh shoots a free throw in the fourth quarter of Madison’s victory over Eagle. | Kalama Hines, EastIdahoNews.com

Madison went into halftime with a 19-14 lead, with the final three points coming on a buzzer-beating triple from Camri Call. The Bobcats carried that dominance over into the third, stretching the lead to seven, 37-30, after three quarters.

But the Mustangs surged in the fourth, getting big shots from Bella Thompson and Porter Wood.

A bucket from Thompson with just over 30 seconds remaining cut the Madison lead to one, and the Bobcats nearly gave the ball back on a 10-second violation. Only a timeout call from Sutton prevented Eagle from regaining possession.

And now with just 22 seconds left, Eagle had no choice but to foul the first Bobcat to touch the ball. It was point guard Maggie Anderson who got free to receive the inbound pass, so she was sent to the line with a chance to push the Madison lead back to three.

Anderson, under immense pressure, drained both shots, hitting nothing but net.

Needing three, Wood took a quick triple at the other end but missed. Once again, the Broncos sent Anderson to the line. And again, Anderson tickled the twine with both, pumping her first as the second fell through.

Sutton said that Anderson has always had “a ton of inner confidence,” going back to when she started for the Bobcats as a freshman.

“Maggie doesn’t get high or low. We wonder if she’s alive some times, because she doesn’t get excited or overly down. She’s started for four years — as a freshman, she was our starting point guard, so she’s shot a million of them.”

By virtue of the victory, Madison moves into the winners bracket, and will face the winner of the noon matchup between Rigby and Boise.

Sutton said his team will need to “come down” from the emotion of their victory, which will “probably hit hard because everybody’s pretty amped.”

Once the girls do that, they will need food, rest and relaxation before they return to the same court for Friday’s semis and a chance to take a 2-0 record into the championship round. The key to beating whomever they play in round two, Sutton said, is simple.

“Defense will win the next game as well,” he said. “Our offense goes off of our ‘D.'”