Recaps, highlights: Opening round of 4A, 3A state girls basketball tournaments
Between the Class 4A and 3A girls state tournaments, 30 high school basketball games will be played in the Tacoma Dome this weekend. The News Tribune will be at all of them, providing game recaps, highlights, interviews, stats and more.
Follow along for live updates from Wednesday’s opening round winner-to-quarterfinals, loser-out games.
CLASS 4A
Round of 12 -- Winner-to-quarterfinals
No. 11 Kennedy Catholic vs. No. 3 Chiawana, 9 a.m.
No. 10 Lake Stevens vs. No. 7 Bothell, 10:30 a.m.
No. 13 Tahoma vs. No. 4 Woodinville, 12:15 p.m.
No. 9 Auburn vs. No. 8 Sumner, 2 p.m.
CLASS 3A
Round of 12 -- Winner-to-quarterfinals
No. 11 Lakeside vs. No. 3 Ridgeline, 3:45 p.m.
No. 15 Meadowdale vs. No. 7 Evergreen, 5:30 p.m.
No. 12 White River vs. No. 5 North Thurston, 7:15 p.m.
No. 9 Stanwood vs. No. 8 Edmonds-Woodway, 9 p.m.
CLASS 4A
No. 11 Kennedy Catholic 52, No. 3 Chiawana 49
The No. 3 next to Chiawana’s name and the No. 11 next to Kennedy Catholic’s meant nothing to Lancers’ guard Jayden Fitzgerald. To her, they were meaningless numbers.
So when the final horn sounded and Kennedy Catholic celebrated after knocking off Chiawana, Fitzgerald wasn’t surprised.
“You guys (the media) may think it’s an upset, but we know deep down that we can do it,” she said. “To us, it’s not an upset.”
Fitzgerald, a first-team all-league selection this winter in the 4A North Puget Sound League, scored 15. Paide Nadarski scored a team-high 17 points, while Britain Brooks added 14.
Kennedy Catholic held a comfortable lead for most of the game but had to hold off a late Chiawana rally. The difference? Kennedy Catholic’s 14 made free throws (87.5%), compared to Chiawana’s 46.7% clip from the line.
“We just had to stay together,” Fitzgerald said. “Our sister bond is what made us win. We just stuck together, supported each other all the way through.”
Chiawana guard Kailee Maldonado scored a game-high 19 points in the loss. Kennedy Catholic advances to play No. 5 Gonzaga Prep, 9 a.m. on Thursday in the 4A quarterfinals.
No. 10 Lake Stevens 55, No. 7 Bothell 48
Lake Stevens guard Noelani Tupua thought Bothell’s Charlotte Lipkin was getting her shot off a little too easily in the first half on Wednesday morning, so she took it upon herself to make life more difficult for the sharpshooting guard.
“I just started face-guarding her,” Tupua said. “She was the only one who was really consistently making 3-pointers, so I face-guarded her.”
Tupua scored 16, while guard Keira Isabelle Tupua scored a team-high 21. Lipkin scored a game-high 26 points for the Cougars, but Bothell only managed 21 total points in the second half.
“We really wanted it,” Noelani Tupua said. “We didn’t want to go home, we weren’t ready to go home.”
Lake Stevens’ reward? A meeting with top-seeded Davis, the defending state champion, in Thursday’s quarterfinal round.
“They’re a really good team” Tupua said. “They won last year. I’m pretty sure they’re gonna want to come and play so we’ve also gotta be ready to come and play. I’m excited to play against them.”
No. 4 Woodinville 63, No. 13 Tahoma 53
Woodinville senior Jazlyn Wilkerson’s 3-point shot wasn’t falling against the Bears, so she tried a different approach. Wilkerson all but abandoned her 3-point shot in the final quarter-and-a-half of Wednesday’s game, instead attacking the basket aggressively.
The adjustment paid off, as the Falcons were able to pull away late for the 10-point victory.
“I’m a shooter, so shooters shoot, but I was like it’s time to attack downhill,” Wilkerson said. “I think that kind of got me going in the end there.
The Bears didn’t make it easy on the Falcons, cutting the deficit to six late in the fourth quarter before a Wilkerson jumper with just over a minute to go sealed the victory.
Tahoma senior Bailey Nettleton led all scorers with 20 points.
Junior Sienna Bieler shouldered the offensive load for most of the first half and into the third quarter before Wilkerson was able to get going. Bieler finished with 15 points and had three 3s.
“Sienna has just been such a key player this year,” Wilkerson said. “Her game has elevated so much. I was hitting (my shot), but she was hitting and my team was hitting. I think that’s what makes us so good is that we all come together.
The season ends for the Bears, while the Falcons advance to Thursday’s quarterfinals where they will face No. 6 Lake Washington at 12:15 p.m. The Falcons and the Kangaroos have met three times this year, with Woodinville winning two of those meetings.
“They’re kind of like our hometown rivals, so it will be a good game tomorrow,” Wilkerson said. “They’re a really good team, really intense, but we’re excited to play them again.
No. 8 Sumner 51, No. 9 Auburn 40
It wasn’t the type of half Sumner junior Kawehi Borden is accustomed to having.
The No. 9 Auburn Tigers stymied Borden in the first half of Wednesday’s loser-out game, holding her scoreless.
But Borden proved she is simply too good for the Tigers to contain her for all 32 minutes. Borden scored all 15 of her points in the second half to lead the No. 8 Spartans to a 51-40 victory.
“I think in the first half they (the Trojans) came out really aggressive,” Borden said. “I feel like the plan for a lot of teams is to scout for our most dominant offensive players. I understand that I’m going to be scouted for that. When it’s tough for me, I’ve to get my teammates to their shots and just work on my defense and that’s what I did. Coming out in the second half, I knew I needed to step up.
And step up she did.
Borden made five of her eight field-goal attempts in the second half and shot 4-for-5 from the free-throw line.
While Borden struggled in the first half, fellow junior Raymiah Jackson shouldered the offensive load for the Sparts. Jackson scored 11 of her 16 points in the first half, shooting 5-for-6 from the field, making all five of her shots inside the three-point line.
“Ray has such a vibrant personality, which we need in a game like that,” Sumner head coach Katie Hyppa said. “Auburn is a gritty team, and (Avery) Hansen is as tough as they come. I challenged Ray to bring that out in her teammates. We needed someone to set the tone.”
Hansen led all scorers with 24 points, more than half of the Trojans’ points.
The Spartans were coming off a 73-48 loss to top seed and defending state champion Davis in the regional round of the state tournament, but Hyppa said the lopsided loss didn’t have her overly worried going into Wednesday’s must-win game.
“We played a good first quarter (against Davis),” Hyppa said. “Even in the second quarter, it was a four-point game with three minutes to play. We made a couple of costly errors. That’s credit to them. They’re a great basketball team. …I thought we had a good gameplan for them, but they shot the lights out of the ball. I think composure-wise, you’ve got to have a short memory this time of year. You’ve got to survive and advance.”
The Spartans (25-4) will face No. 2 Union (25-2) and their star point guard Brooklynn Haywood at 2 p.m. in Thursday’s quarterfinals.
“Union is obviously a good basketball team,” Hyppa said. “Brooklynn is one of the best players in the state and on the west coast and can score the ball at a very high clip. We’re going to have a good gameplan for them, and it’s going to come down to executing it.”
CLASS 3A
No. 11 Lakeside 55, No. 3 Ridgeline 41
The Lions (19-10) hope Wednesday’s victory over the Falcons is a step toward making a run to where they were a year ago on Saturday night of the state tournament – the 3A state championship game.
Despite the Lions’ No. 11 seed, Lakeside dominated the No. 3 Falcons (19-6) in a loser-out game to advance to Thursday’s quarterfinals.
Junior Kaliya Woodard led the Lions with 23 points, shooting 8-for-11 from the field and 6-for-8 from behind the three-point line.
“I was just letting the game come to me,” Woodward said. “Taking a deep breath and taking the shots I know I can make and feel comfortable making and then relying on my teammates that they’re going to make the right decisions too.
Senior Madilyn Crowley led the Falcons with 25 points, but scored just six of those points in the first half as the Lions built an eight-point lead at halftime. Crowley came alive in the second half, the Falcons were outscored by 10 in the third quarter and found themselves trailing by 18 going into the final quarter.
“As a team we’ve watched a lot of film,” Woodard said. “We realized that we really need to focus in on our 2-3 (zone). We have a special version of it where we focus on (Crowley). …We really focused on details and that’s what carried us through the game.
The Lions will face No. 4 Roosevelt at 3:45 p.m. on Thursday in the quarterfinals.
No. 7 Evergreen 53, No. 15 Meadowdale 37
Evergreen sophomore Courtney Neal didn’t take a shot in the first half of Wednesday’s loser-out game against Meadowdale.
But with their season on the line, Neal didn’t disappoint in the game’s final 16 minutes.
Neal scored all 15 of her points in the second half, shooting 6-for-8 from the field to lead the Plainsmen (21-6) over the 15th-seeded Mavericks (16-11).
“I had a talk with my coaches in the locker room (at halftime),” Neal said. “I thought I was playing nervous because of the atmosphere. Then I realized, if we lose, we go home and that’s not what I want for my team. I knew that I had to step up and be a leader on the team and play well for my teammates.
The Mavericks led for most of the first half and took a one-point lead into the locker room at halftime. But the Plainsmen opened the second half on a 9-2 run to take the lead. Meadowdale responded with a quick 6-0 run of its own, but from that point forward, it was all Evergreen.
The Plainsmen used a 12-0 run to open up a 12-point lead and the Mavericks never really got within striking distance for the remainder of the contest.
“When we got better on the defensive end, everything turned around and our energy picked up,” Neal said.
The season ends for Meadowdale, while Evergreen advances to Thursday’s quarterfinals where it will face top-seeded Bellevue at 5:30 p.m.
No. 12 White River 60, No. 5 North Thurston 45
In what seemed to be a theme for the day on the girls court at the 4A and 3A state basketball championships at the Tacoma Dome, White River junior guard Maggee Schmitz struggled offensively in the first half, but just like many of the star players on the winning teams of previous games, Schmitz came alive in the second half to lead the 12th-seeded Hornets (19-6) over No. 5 North Thurston (20-7).
Schmitz had eight points in the first half, shooting just 1-for-8 from the field and five of those eight points came from the free-throw line. With Schmitz struggling, the entire Hornets offense struggled, shooting 9-for-24 as a team in the first half.
Despite White River’s offensive struggles, the game remained close and was tied at 23 at halftime. So when Schmitz and her teammates came alive offensively in the second half, it was a blow the Rams couldn’t withstand.
Schmitz finished with a game-high 28 points, shooting 7-for-10 in the final two quarters. Her back-to-back 3s to start the fourth quarter gave the Hornets a 17-point lead and all but sealed the victory.
“My shots weren’t falling in the first half the way I wanted them to,” Schmitz said. “But my teammates believed in me and my coaches believed in me and the shots ended up falling.
White River head coach Chris Gibson wasn’t surprised his star guard got it going in the second half.
“That’s what Mags does,” Gibson said. “She’s an amazing player, but she’s a better person than she is a player. She’s an amazing teammate and she works incredibly hard. She cares about her teammates and she cares about her family here. Performances like that, she’s done that here and there.”
The Hornets played the Rams on February 18 in the semifinals of the District 3 girls basketball tournament, falling 58-44. They were determined to have a different outcome on Wednesday.
“I thought my kids did a really good job of being a lot more composed this time around,” Gibson said. “They handled pressure better. I’m just really proud of my team.”
Senior Shayla Cordis led North Thurston with 23 points.
The season ends for the Rams, while the Hornets will face No. 6 Eastside Catholic at 7:15 p.m. in Thursday’s quarterfinals. It will be a tough matchup for the Hornets, as the Crusaders have a considerable height advantage.
“We’re going to grow tonight – physically were going to get taller,” Gibson joked when asked what his team will do to prepare for the Crusaders. “That’s an amazing program with some really good players. That’s the fun thing about the state basketball tournament is every day is a new day. Every opponent is a completely different gameplan and you’ve got to forget about what happened today and move on to tomorrow.”
No. 9 Stanwood 62, No. 8 Edmonds-Woodway 47
The No. 9 Spartans (21-5) used a balanced scoring attack led by senior Ellalee Wortham, who finished with 18 points and eight rebounds to outlast No. 8 Edmonds-Woodway.
Wortham was one of five players with at least nine points for Stanwood.
“We do a great job of sharing the ball and everyone is going to get their shot,” Wortham said.
The Spartans led by three at halftime, but outscored the Warriors 31-19 in the second half to make up the final margin of 15.
“During halftime we just talked about communicating defensively and stopping their key players,” Wortham said.
The Spartans were able to overcome the effort of Edmonds-Woodway senior Finley Wichers, who finished with 26 points and set a 3A state tournament record with eight 3-pointers, surpassing the pervious record of seven by Rainier Beach’s Stephanie Mitchell in 2004.
The Spartans move on to Thursday’s quarterfinals where they will face No. 2 Snohomish at 9 p.m.
This story was originally published March 4, 2026 at 11:05 AM.
