Sumner’s Alyson Deaver is All-Area girls basketball player of the year
Alyson Deaver says she’ll never forget what Sumner coach Katie Hyppa told her during the 4A state championship.
Inside the Tacoma Dome on March 5, and with most of the Sumner community in attendance, the Spartans trailed Woodinville early. When Deaver tallied her second foul early on, Hyppa looked to her, and elected to trust her best player in the season’s biggest moment.
“She gave me that look, like ‘go.’ Like, she just said ‘go.’ And I knew what that meant,” Deaver said. “I was like, ‘okay, she’s telling me to play my game… we need some baskets here. We need that.’ And so I’ll remember that for a long time.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to forget that. I thought it was pretty cool.”
Of 32 available minutes, Deaver played 29 of them without fouling out, and posted a 20-10 double-double. Against one of the 4A’s toughest teams in Woodinville, which went on to beat Sumner in the title game, 65-63, Deaver brought a challenge to anyone who guarded her.
In Hyppa’s words, she’s a “gamer.” She stands at 6-foot-1, but possesses the footwork of a guard. She can score from anywhere on the floor, and attack the rim on any defender.
“Quite honestly, she’s hard to prepare for,” Hyppa said, who played college basketball at Washington State. “I feel lucky that I didn’t have to go up against her. I would’ve been scratching my head.”
Deaver is The News Tribune’s All-Area girls basketball player of the year.
“After everything that I’ve worked through and been through, and just the community that surrounded me and supported me, it means a lot to me,” Deaver said. “Especially seeing everyone that was at our (final) game. I think it really goes to show how much support I’ve had throughout this whole process, and I think that it means a lot to me and my community.”
A pair of knee injuries sidelined her for the first two years of her high school career, but Deaver debuted as a junior in Spring 2021 and immediately captured the 4A SPSL’s League MVP. That season wouldn’t feature a state tournament, meaning Sumner’s run to the title game earlier this month was her first and only experience in the Tacoma Dome.
Throughout a 24-game senior season – her first full season – Deaver averaged 24.5 points, 10 rebounds, and led the Spartans to a 4A SPSL title and 12-1 league record. Before Sumner’s last-second loss in the 4A championship, they had just one other defeat on their schedule, plus a forced forfeit from health and safety protocols.
Out of the gates, Deaver caught fire, and never cooled off. She posted at least 10 points in every game, and shot 47 percent from the field. By tipoff, Hyppa knew she’d get 110 percent from her star on both ends of the floor.
Deaver won’t pace her team in three-point attempts, though her shooting percentage from beyond the arc matched her conversion rate inside: 47 percent.
“She’s difficult to guard. She can attack. She can shoot,” Hyppa said. “Defensively, she’s long. She’s active, which made it difficult for players to attack her on the defensive end.
“She has a lot of different weapons. She’s a multi-threat. It’s not like she could just do one thing.”
Alyson’s twin sister, Catelyn, also won The News Tribune’s All-Area First-Team honors. Hyppa, in her first season as Sumner’s head coach, won Coach of the Year.
The Deaver twins committed to Dixie State University, a Division-I basketball program in Utah, together. If Sumner wants to repeat their run to a state title game and second place finish, they’ll have to win without both Catelyn and Alyson’s senior leadership.
That’s a big deal, considering their outreach and mentorship over younger players in Sumner’s community. The school’s program features “feeder teams” for players as early as the fourth grade, and the Deaver sisters are role models. Younger players, who aspire to one day take Sumner to the Tacoma Dome, look to Alyson and Catelyn, Hyppa said.
“Sumner is a very community-based town,” Hyppa said, “and so I think that it’s safe to say that every little girl in the town from the age of 10 on up looks up to those two... and those are hard shoes to fill.”
The reality that Deaver’s high school career hasn’t hit her yet, she says. That could change for both Alyson and Catelyn soon, when both sisters gear up for college basketball together.
To hoist the second-place state trophy alongside her sister was a “dream come true,” Alyson added. For both the 2018 and 2019 seasons, she could only watch Catelyn from the sidelines while nursing knee injuries.
“We do everything together,” Deaver said. “So watching her do something that she loved, and not being able to be out there with her … I got to sit back and kind of watch from a different standpoint.”
Alyson’s time with Sumner may be over, though she’s guaranteed another season with Catelyn at the next level. Welcomed by future Dixie State teammates on recent campus visits, both were sold by the coaching staff, and weighed factors that meant more to them than basketball.
And both sisters shared one year with Hyppa, whose collegiate playing career at Washington State helped prepare Alyson and Catelyn for Division-I basketball.
“She made us stronger mentally,” Alyson said of her coach, “and I think that we were just ready for someone to step in and take control, and she definitely did that. She had a plan. And she was 100% committed to every practice, every game.
“I think she was able to mentor us a lot… especially me and my sister, because we’re going to college next year. She definitely showed us where we (needed) to be, and she pushed us.”
