Chiawana girls pave path to league title with huge win over Kamiakin

Beating the team regarded as the best squad in the league and ending their streak of 27 consecutive conference games won was nice. But for the Chiawana High School girls basketball team, Friday night’s win over the Kamiakin Braves was about something bigger.

“We had to prove to ourselves that we’re potentially a top-tier team in the state of Washington,” Chiawana coach Steve Davis said.

And that’s just what they did.

Kenedy Cartwright scored 23 points and registered seven steals to lead the host Riverhawks to a 67-60 victory over the Braves, clearing the path for a split of the league title if both teams win out to end the season.

“This means everything,” Cartwright said. “My senior year, that’s the only thing I wanted to do, I said it going into the season, ‘we have to beat Kamiakin, we have to be league champions.’ We still have to take care of business, but I’m confident, with our teamwork, we’re gonna do some excellent things.”

When preparing for Kamiakin (16-2, 11-1, No. 5 in 3A RPI entering the game), which features two of the league’s top two scorers in Oumou Toure and Alexa Hazel, defense has to be at the forefront. The plan for Chiawana (14-3, 10-1) was relatively simple: Alyssa Agundis would man up on Toure and Macey Morales would take Hazel, and the other three defenders would be ready to help out inside.

It worked to near perfection.

Toure was held to a season-low 13 points, while Hazel scored a dozen, well below her season average of 17. The tradeoff was Rylie Clark getting loose outside to drain three 3-pointers and score 15 points, but Davis and the Riverhawks were more than willing to concede that.

“Alyssa Agundis was phenomenal all night. She hounded her (Toure) and hounded her,” Davis said. “But also the three off-side, help defenders. Every time Oumou got the ball, we had someone next to her.

“Basically, it took four kids to stop her.”

Chiawana made its move at the start of the second half, when a combination of good defense and poor shooting kept Kamiakin from scoring a point for the first 5 minutes. The Riverhawks took advantage, getting a couple triples from Morales to lead 45-33 midway through the period, and 50-39 at the end of it.

A 14-2 run got Kamiakin back within four with more than 3 minutes to play, but Chiawana settled back into a groove defensively down the stretch and Agundis made some key jump shots late to put the game away.

Clare Eubanks had 13 points and 11 rebounds for Chiawana, while Morales added 16 points and Agundis 10.

A HELPING HAND

After his mother collapsed in her home last week, Davis missed many of the practices leading up to this game while with her in the hospital. He turned the proverbial whistle over to assistants Scott Bond and DeAndre McCargo, who, obviously, excelled under the circumstances.

“Bond and DeAndre, this was their win,” Davis said.

Added Cartwright: “DeAndre and Coach Bond really stepped up this week. DeAndre’s usually the positive guy, and he had to be a little negative this week to get us back into the swing of things. And then yesterday at practice he said ‘okay guys, I’m done being negative.’ ”

He should be free to go back to that role. Davis said his mom was doing much better.

UP NEXT

Kamiakin: Is at Richland on Tuesday and hosts Pasco on Friday to close out the regular season. While the loss was a setback, coach Lane Schumacher said the team had plenty to take away from this as it gears up for the postseason.

“It’s disappointing,” he said. “We knew it was going to be a battle, and at times we competed, but we just weren’t smart at times.

“We need to do a better job defensively. We got called for a lot of fouls where we didn’t move our feet. I thought we rebounded well at times, but we gave up too many second shots. So we need to clean that up.”

Chiawana: Goes on the road to face Southridge on Saturday. Hosts Hanford on Tuesday and is at Kennewick on Friday in the regular season finale.

This story was originally published January 26, 2018 at 8:31 PM with the headline "Chiawana girls pave path to league title with huge win over Kamiakin."