Tumwater girls basketball lacks size, but they’re also short on losses

Tumwater High School’s girls basketball team began the season with confidence and a streak of victories.

But the smart money knew when the Thunderbirds might lose. Last Saturday, Tumwater would host a Sequim team that had won its first seven games, fueled by 6-foot Jayla Julmist and 5-10 Hope Glasser. The T-Birds only player taller than 5-9, second leading scorer and rebounder Natalie Sumrok, would miss the game to attend her brother’s wedding.

Instead of a defeat, though, the game turned into Tumwater’s 10th consecutive win, 52-45, leaving the T-Birds undefeated heading into Wednesday night’s 2A Evergreen Conference opener against improved Aberdeen.

Sequim posed a challenge that meshed with one of Tumwater’s goals for the 2019-20 season.

“One of our goals is to outrebound every opponent. So far, we’ve done that,” said third-year coach Robin Johnson. “We work on rebounding every single day.”

The T-Birds assigned 5-foot-7 sophomore Cassie Kaufman, tied with senior Olivia Bailon for Tumwater’s rebounding lead at seven per game, to guard Julmist. Teammates Isabella Lund and Aubrey Amendala, both 5-6 sophomore guards, praised Kaufman’s defense on a player nearly half a foot taller.

“We also did well defensively to stop their guards,” Amendala said.

Johnson thought the win against a team primed to expose Tumwater’s biggest weakness, lack of size, was a good building block.

“We were definitely undersized, but we worked all week on game planning to take away the things that they wanted to do,” she said. “It wasn’t flawless, but overall I think our preparation and execution were good.”

Getting and maintaining possession has been key for the T-Birds. In addition to outrebounding each opponent, they’ve reduced their average number of turnovers per game to 12, after coughing it up more than 20 times per game in 2018-19.

“Outrebounding teams makes us feel like we’re accomplishing a lot,” said Lund, who averages seven points, four assists and five steals per game. “We’re tiny but, man, we really do work hard. Rebounding shows effort, so when we outrebound a team it’s us outworking them.”

Lund, Amendala, Sumrok and Kaufman, along with Lily McCauley, formed a “fab five freshmen” group a year ago that immediately turned around Tumwater’s fortunes in girls basketball after forming bonds for years as members of the 90TEN club program directed by Johnson.

Though the T-Birds fell a game short of the state tournament, they finished 19-4, their best record since the 2010-11 team was 22-5 and finished fourth in Class 2A state.

Amendala, Tumwater’s leading scorer at 17 points per game, thinks the team is still trending upward.

“We’re doing much better this season than last, but we have so much more potential to give,” she said.

Johnson, who is also Amendala’s mom, agrees.

“There are things we still need to learn. We’re at an average age of 15 ½. We need to make better decisions and have more focus during games,” she said of a squad that added two more young players, freshmen Janiesse Armstrong and Kaari Little, this year.

“I am very happy with the work they’re putting in every day, but I don’t think we’ve come close to playing to our potential.”

Lund knows a couple of areas where the T-Birds can get better.

“We need better shot selection and awareness of the shot clock. When it’s winding down, we want to get layups instead of just chucking it up,” she said.

Both Lund and Amendala stress individuals making sure they bring their best effort as parts of the whole.

“Outside of practice, we need to work on our individual games,” Amendala said.

“If we each work on our individual assignments, when we come together as a team it will flow nicely,” Lund added.

The 2A EvCo has never been an easy league. Members River Ridge, since departed to the South Puget Sound League, and W.F. West won state titles during the last decade. Black Hills has brought home a trophy from Yakima for four consecutive years.

During this pre-season, Rochester, led by 6-foot post Paige Winter and athletic guard Lexie Sederberg-Jones, added a fourth team to the list of EvCo schools with at least six victories. Aberdeen, which won a total of two games in ’17-’18 and ’18-’19 combined, was 4-5 heading into Wednesday’s game at Tumwater.

“We’ve got to come ready to play every game,” said Johnson, whose team lost only one league game in ’18-’19, to W.F. West. “We’re not good enough or skilled enough to overlook anyone.”

This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 6:00 AM.