White River suffocates Sammamish in 2A regionals, winning 39-20 to advance to Yakima
The scoreboard was operating just fine in the Mount Tahoma High School gym on Friday night, though someone who waltzed into White River’s Class 2A girls state tournament regional round game against Sammamish after halftime might have figured it was broken.
The score after three quarters: White River 38, Sammamish 6.
While lopsided scores aren’t uncommon in high school basketball, they’re rare in the state tournament.
“I think we put a lot of pressure on them that they didn’t expect,” said freshman forward Vivian Kingston, who scored a game-high 12 points in the win.
That pressure included a variety of different looks that kept Sammamish off-balance and guessing, notably, a rotation of a 2-2-1 and 1-3-1 full-court press.
“A couple different looks,” said White River coach Chris Gibson. “Our kids are used to it. That’s our system. We run it. They know where to be, what to do.”
White River went on to win the game, 39-20, after pulling some of the team’s starters in the fourth quarter. The full-court pressure never allowed Sammamish to get into any sort of rhythm. By the time the Redhawks advanced the ball past half court and settled into their half-court offense on most possessions, half the shot clock had already been drained.
“I feel like it really pressured them because by the time they got over halfcourt, the shot clock was already like eight seconds in,” said sophomore guard Lexie Banks, who scored four points and applied consistent pressure on Sammamish’s guards on the defensive end. “They didn’t have a lot of time. Our pressure in the half court really helped, too.”
Offensively, White River preaches unselfishness. It’s one of the five rules the team’s players came up with before the season, in fact, and it was on full display on Friday night. Kingston scored 12, Brooke Mahler and Ava Bright scored six apiece, Morgan Greene scored five, Lexie Banks scored four and Ashley Banks and Josie Jacobs each added three.
“It’s not just a one-person game,” Lexie Banks said. “We have to play as a team.”
With the win, White River secured a trip to the Yakima Valley SunDome for next week’s Class 2A state tournament. With only two seniors on the roster, Gibson said it’s the youngest team he’s ever coached.
“They’re young,” Gibson said. “Sometimes they don’t know what they don’t know. They’re very young, freshmen and sophomores. We have great senior leaders. We have quickness, they love to play basketball and they’re fun to coach. They come to the gym every day to work and they really get after it. They’re a great family. With young kids, you don’t always get that. They’re very unselfish.”
The competition will ramp up considerably for the 2A SPSL champs in Yakima against the state’s top teams.
“Offensively, we’re going to have to play a little bit better, shoot the ball better and be a little cleaner,” Gibson said. “There were some stretches in our game, we played so hard. This is the youngest team I’ve ever had. To be able to get them to the Dome, it’s a great experience for the kids, so let’s go over there and try to win some ball games.”
