Kennewick grad named MVP in Women’s National Basketball League

Kennewick High graduate Leilani Mitchell finished her WNBL season in Australia on top Sunday night as she led the Southside Flyers over the Townsville Fire 99-82 in the league championship game.

Mitchell, 35, scored a game-high 31 points on 9 of 13 shooting from the floor. Of those shots, Mitchell was 5-for-7 from the 3-point line, and she was a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line.

Mitchell, the team’s point guard, added 3 rebounds and 5 assists.

For her work, she was named the Grand Final MVP.

Especially in the first half, Mitchell seemed to sink a 3-point field goal when the Flyers needed it most, either giving her team the lead or tying the contest.

Mitchell told Australian media that with the Flyers losing team captain Jenna O’Hea to a knee injury, she would have to pick up the scoring slack.

“Being the point guard, I am happy to get assists and make sure everyone is involved and that was the case this season,” she told Laine Clark of WNBL.basketball. “But when Jenna went down, I knew I had to step up a bit more and be a bit more selfish offensively, and thankfully my shot was feeling good, especially today.”

Because of the pandemic, the WNBL played a condensed schedule this fall — 60 games in 6 weeks — with Southside going a league-best 11-2 during the regular season.

Games were played in three locations, and no international players were allowed to play in this short season unless they were Australian — which Mitchell is.

The title was Southside’s first in the WNBL since 2012, when the team was then know as the Dandenong Rangers.

21 for 21

Here is the third installment of the Mid-Columbia’s 21 for 21, the top local sports stories in our region from the past 21 years:

The Mid-Columbia has had its share of Olympians and Paralympians these last 21 years.

▪ Prosser’s Kelly Blair LaBounty, who competed in the heptathlon in 1996 for the United States Olympic Team in Atlanta, also made the U.S. team in 2000 in that event.

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▪ Richland’s Hope Solo was a goalie for the United States’ gold-medal winning women’s soccer teams in both the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and the 2012 London Summer Games.

She had a standout, and controversial career, but more on that later in another story for the 1999 Richland High grad.

▪ Kennewick’s Leilani Mitchell, who just led her team to the WNBL season title in Australia on Sunday night, has been an Olympian for Australia.

While graduating from Kennewick High in 2005, Mitchell’s late mother was an Australian citizen. Leilani decided to get her Aussie citizenship, and now holds a dual United States-Australian citizenship.

Mitchell is a point guard for the Australian women’s national basketball team, called the Opals.

The team lost in the quarterfinals in the 2016 Rio Olympics, but is expected to be a strong contender next summer in the 2021 Tokyo Games.

▪ On the Paralympian side, no athlete may be as decorated at David Wagner, from College Place.

Wagner played boys basketball for Walla Walla High School, and after high school was paralyzed in a freak diving accident on a California beach.

But Wagner picked up tennis and had represented the United States in four Paralympics so far in his career — 2004 in Athens, 2008 in Beiling, 2012 in London, and 2016 in Rio. He would have also been in the 2020 Tokyo Games had the pandemic not happened.

Wagner has won three gold medals — for mixed doubles in 2004, mixed doubles in 2008, and quad doubles in 2012.

He’s also earned three silver medals and two bronze medals. At 46, he’s still going strong.

▪ Finally, there is Chelsea McClammer, who went to Kiona-Benton and became a U.S. Paralympian in wheelchair racing.

Injured as a young child in a car wreck, the now 26 McClammer competed in the 2008 Beijing Games, and she won two silver medals in the 2016 Games in Rio.

She will likely be competing in the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

College basketball

Richland High grad Riley Sorn started his University of Washington men’s basketball career as a preferred walk-on.

That was two seasons ago. Last summer, the redshirt sophomore was informed by the Huskies coaching staff that he was being put on full scholarship — a reward for all of his hard work with the team.

Sorn, at 7-foot-4 and 255 pounds, hasn’t started a game yet for the Huskies, who have struggled out of the gate with a 1-6 record.

But the former Bombers standout is catching the eyes of everyone when he does play.

Coming off the bench, Sorn averages 11 minutes of playing time.

But he’s shooting a sizzling 76 percent (16 for 21) from the floor, is averaging 4.0 rebounds, averages 6.0 points, and is among the team leaders in blocked shots with 7.

UW coach Mike Hopkins told Percy Allen of the Seattle Times that Sorn has earned his added playing time.

“The thing that stands out most to me is that he’s just a confident kid that brings it,” Hopkins told Allen. “He doesn’t complain. He doesn’t do anything. He just works and is a great positive influence. And when you have guys like that and they finally have success and they’ve been sitting on the bench a long time, (I’m) just so proud of him.”

• The Great Northwest Athletic Conference announced last week that the remaining men’s and women’s conference basketball schedule was wiped out for the 2020-21 season.

The uncertainty with coronavirus made it tough for the remaining schools still with plans to play to do so.

Earlier this year, six GNAC teams — including Central Washington University – announced they would not try to play this season.

That still left four schools – Alaska Fairbanks, Northwest Nazarene, Saint Martin’s and Seattle Pacific — with plans to play.

But last week, Alaska Fairbanks announced it was dropping out, and SPU followed right after that.

The conference is allowing schools to independently schedule games, but not before Jan. 7.