Ilwaco senior guard Erika Glenn hits the final three-pointer while scoring a school record 46 points against Chief Leschi last week.

PUYALLUP — In the last regular season game of her high school career, Erika Glenn broke Lindsay Ramsey’s 1,999 single-game Ilwaco girls’ basketball scoring record last Tuesday, June 1. Glenn put up 47 against Chief Leschi in Puyallup in a 77-32 victory for the Lady Fishermen. Ilwaco finished 10-2 and in second place with an 8-2 Pacific League record.

Ramsey scored 43 points on Feb. 11, 1999 against Adna. The record has long been in danger from Glenn, especially this year, when she has scored in the upper-30s on multiple occasions.

Against the Warriors, Glenn put up an extraordinary 40 points in the first half, 20 in each of the first two quarters, as Ilwaco took a 57-16 lead over the Pacific League’s fourth-place team. Glenn and her teammates knew their offense was clicking, but they didn’t realize quite what kind of a night Glenn was having.

Maggie Jacobson, a senior who played three years for the program and now keeps the scorebook, alerted the team at halftime.

“I don’t think any of us realized how close she was until we found out at halftime,” center Olivia McKinstry said. “Then we kind of knew it was going to happen.”

“I’ve come close before,” Glenn said. “But I don’t normally play all four quarters.”

When she learned at halftime that she had 40 points, she told coach Ned Bittner she wanted to stay in to break the record.

Glenn quickly got fouled and hit two free throws, then knocked down a pull-up jumper from the free throw line to set the mark. Glenn added a three-pointer on an assist from Tiana Ramsey to reach 47. That put her outside the margin for scorers’ error (not a small point—the home Chief Leschi book initially credited her with only 46 before it was corrected to 47). Bittner called timeout to celebrate and removed Glenn shortly afterward.

“A lot of her top scoring games have come against the toughest opponents,” Bittner said. Some of her high-scoring games have come in games where baskets are hard to come by, when there is the greatest need for her to attack and create. She had 38 in a 55-44 win over Chief Leschi last season. Glenn put up 35 this year against third-place Forks despite leaving early. She scored 36 in a 43-40 win over league-champion Raymond.

But to reach 40 in a sixteen-minute half is another matter, and it helps if the offense is flowing smoothly. On Tuesday, the offense was by all accounts firing on all cylinders. Ilwaco hit eight threes (three by Glenn) in a 57-point first half. The team led 29-4 after a quarter, but Leschi put up 12 in the second quarter and the Fishermen never went into cruise control.

“Chief Leschi is a top-four team in our league,” Bittner said. “They have a very good basketball player who plays in AAU, Malina Pluff.”

“Everybody was hitting shots, it was all flowing smoothly,” McKinstry said. With three-pointers falling, Glenn had openings in the lane.

“It was just a really good offensive game,” Glenn said. “We were just trying to run up the score as high as possible. Basically, run the floor and score quickly.”

Glenn, a shooting guard who has committed to Western Oregon University, is a two-time First-Team All-State player. She has always had the speed to get by almost any defender and a Russell Westbrook-like heedlessness attacking in traffic. Her knack for winning physical battles for offensive rebounds has contributed another big chunk of points to her totals. Like most elite scorers, she thrives in transition, and creates plenty such opportunities with her own steals.

Glenn reached 1,000 career points in January of last year and is likely over 1,600 points now despite a shortened senior year. Bittner said he would not release her career totals until after the season. Ilwaco’s career scoring leaders include Kaech and Lori Newell, each with more than 2,000 points; Ashley Kitzman with 1,729; and Heather Hocking at 1,541.

Ilwaco entered the four-round District playoffs as the two seed out of the Pacific League.