Rogers girls keep rolling at SPSL tournament

The Rogers High girls basketball team has had quite the turnaround since struggling early in the season.

Rogers looked outmatched against the competition early in the season, struggling to a bleak 1-5 start. But something happened after the Rams’ 42-40 loss to Emerald Ridge on Dec. 18 — they started winning.

And the Rams kept winning until the end of the season, climbing their way back to near the top of the standings. A 42-39 loss to the Puyallup on Jan. 29 secured the Rams a fourth-place finish in the 4A SPSL South.

“They just have a heart. They’re just starting to understand how to finish at the end of a game, so that’s been a huge growth thing for them,” Rogers coach Amy Looker said. “And they’re really starting to work together as a team … it’s figuring out their roles, figuring out how to help each other to score, and figuring out how to come together defensively. That’s all coming together right now.”

Over the weekend, Rogers defeated Tahoma, 49-41, at Todd Beamer High to claim the SPSL’s No. 8 seed into the West Central District III playoffs.

The Rams beat Kent-Meridian, 42-31, on Feb. 2 at Beamer to reach the seeding game against Tahoma (14-7, 4-4).

“I think our team camaraderie has made this such a fun experience,” Jessi Westering said. “We got big ‘Mo’ on our side. We got motivation, we got momentum and we feel like we can hang with anybody … we have each other’s backs.”

The Rams had big games from SPSL South first team members Westering and Tristan Coltom as both juniors dominated the game up top and down low.

Westering finished with a game-high 24 points, while Coltom contributed with 17 more in the Rams’ win over the Bears on Saturday.

“It’s really fun to be on this team,” Coltom said. “We have so much potential as a team, and we were thinking why don’t we keep on winning — and we finally got that mentality.”

With the win, Rogers will travel to play Gig Harbor (13-6, 9-3) on Thursday (Feb. 11) in the opening round of the West Central District III tournament.

“We were thinking let’s keep (it) going — let’s get to districts and see how we can do,” Coltom said.

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 10:45 AM with the headline "Rogers girls keep rolling at SPSL tournament."