Auburn knew it was going to have its hands full with a battle against Woodinville, the number two 4A high school girls basketball team in the state, according to RPI rankings.

On top of just a game against the Falcons, the stage would be set at the accesso ShoWare Center in Kent and was the final game of the MLK King Showcase Jan. 20 at the home of the Seattle Thunderbirds.

“Obviously, I wanna win, but they are an undefeated top team in the state and we were right there. So we feel good about that,” Auburn Head Coach Jessica Hansen said.

Auburn lost a tightly contested game for all 32 minutes, 49-44 for the Trojans fifth loss of the season (11-5).

“It was a good opportunity to play a really good team and see where we are,” Hansen said.

Kaleesa Howard made her first two threes in the first quarter which kept Auburn right with the Falcons early. At the end of the first, Auburn trailed 15-10.

In the second quarter, it was Avery Hansen getting rolling for the Trojans. Avery Hansen had 12 first half points on 5 of 11 shooting.

“We were telling her to keep going down hill. We were even isolating her inside a couple times. She’s pretty physical and likes that contact, then when they collapsed down it opened shooters for us… She’s a dawg, she competes hard,” Jessica Hansen said.

Part of the demise in the second half was Auburn just couldn’t score. Part of that reason might have been because Hansen wasn’t shooting, she took just two shots the entire second half.

“She’s gotta be more aggressive. She’ll have moments where she goes hard, but we kind of looked a little tired later,” Hansen said.

Auburn in the RPI rankings is 21 but was right with Woodinville after one half of play despite really not shooting the ball well at all. Auburn shot 25.8% from the floor and 14.3% from the three point line, while Woodinville was 10 of 22 (45.5%) and 3 of 9 from deep but only led 25-21.

The Trojans have lost games to some very good teams this year, the full sum of points in their losses is 10 points to teams inside Washington state. Woodinville takes the cake for largest win at just five points.

“We are doing the little things a lot better than we were at the beginning of the season. Our toughness, our offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding and our defense has gotten a lot better,” Jessica Hansen said.

In the second half, Auburn came out with some fire and took a lead over the Falcons due in part to Ari Deloney. The transfer from Foster was MVP of 2A KingCo last season and has been slowly finding her way in the Trojan offense. Delony had just two points in the first half but in the second half put up 12 points.

Heading to the fourth, Auburn was on top of Woodinville 39-36 after Sophie Christensen threw up a shot as the buzzer sounded for the three-point lead.

Unfortunately for the Trojans, they just ran out of energy. The Falcons went on a 13-3 run for the entirety of the fourth quarter until Howard had a breakaway layup as time expired.

The game was right there for the Trojans, but Auburn saw it slip through their fingers. There were nine different lead changes and three ties through the entire game. Auburn outrebounded, outshot and had less turnovers than Woodinville. But Auburn shot just 28% from the field and against good teams, that’s never a recipe for success.

“We shot 16 more times than them. We just gotta make them and finish better. Part of it is getting higher percentage looks. But I thought in the first half we were getting a lot of good looks, but we just didn’t finish,” Coach Hansen said.

The Trojans were also down a starting player in Jayden Lewis who had a concussion which meant more on the plate of Deloney, Howard and Hansen. As a trio they scored 39 of the 44 points (88.6%).

Auburn now turns its attention to Kennedy, a team that had defeated the Trojans shockingly on Dec. 12.

“We gotta compete and take care of business. We felt like we coulda won that game so we are ready for our get back,” said Hansen.