Turner, Columbia-Burbank girls storming through regular season

In the final act of her high school career, Taylor Turner is putting on quite the show for the Columba-Burbank girls basketball team.

A two-time All-SCAC East first teamer, Turner, a senior post, is averaging 16.7 points and 11 rebounds per game (all stats were recorded before Friday’s games), and the Coyotes (14-0, 8-0) are No. 12 in the state’s 1A RPI rankings. While acknowledging his team still has a ways to go to get back to the state tournament — placed sixth last year — coach Jay Aune is pleased with how the season has gone.

“I’m happy with it, but I can’t say that I’m overly surprised necessarily,” Aune said. “Going into the summer, I thought we had a lot of holes to replace, which we did. We had a great summer, felt really good about things.”

After graduating four talented seniors, the season outlook started to get a bit bleaker when Aune’s daughter, Teagan, was lost for the season when she injured her ACL at the end of the summer. But Turner’s developing leadership, and major contributions from Ali Martineau (11.9 points and four assists per game) and Monica Mares — Burbank’s only other returning contributors — have allowed the Coyotes to not miss a beat.

“Yeah, there were some concerns, but I’m hoping one of the biggest advantages is that we really haven’t changed a whole lot about how we go about doing things in the last four years,” Aune said. “I’d venture a guess that at least part of our success comes from the standpoint that hopefully our kids have a really good understanding of what it is we’re trying to do, because they’ve been doing that for the last couple years.”

Like any good coach, Aune has the Coyotes focused on playing well in the games immediately upcoming, and wouldn’t offer much speculation on the postseason. That’s probably a good idea, because Burbank’s next four games will arguably be its biggest ones of the season, as the Coyotes host No. 21 River View (13-1, 10-0) in a make-up game Monday, travel to play at No. 28 Connell (9-5, 7-2) Friday, host No. 29 Kiona-Benton (7-8, 5-4) Saturday and play at River View Jan. 31.

“If you look at the last four years, with River View, Connell and Ki-Be, we’ve duked it out every year,” Aune said. “You’ve gotta understand, with a school our size, those kids see each other in volleyball, they see each other in basketball, we seem them in the summer, if those kids are playing spring sports then you’re going against those kids all the time. Not only are you going against the same kids all the time, you’ve been going against the same kids since third grade.

“I think that has a lot to do with the fact that those games become a little bit bigger than some of those other games against schools that are a little bit further away from us.”

A look at some of the other competitive small-school teams in the area:

RIVER VIEW: Despite only making the state playoffs once in their history, the Panthers seem like the team most poised to play spoiler to Burbank’s magical run.

Coming off consecutive seven-win seasons, River View has been a talented squad the past couple years, but just a little too rough around the edges. Seniors Aaliyah Anderson and Morgan Munson have developed into team leaders this season, and the proof of that leadership has shown up in the win column.

“Our core has been playing since they were freshmen and sophomores,” River View coach Matt Smith said. “I knew this was going to be a year when they could kind of turn the corner and step up.”

Working in tandem as a star post and point guard, Anderson excels in the paint and on the boards — but can also shoot from outside — and Munson is a floor general capable of pushing the Panthers’ tempo.

The Panthers will get a chance to prove their worth in the closing stages of the regular season as they play Connell once — on Feb. 3 — and Burbank twice in its final five conference games.

“Burbank is super well coached, and it’s going to be a big challenge for us,” Smith said. “Connell is very good too.”

CONNELL: Despite suffering defeats to Burbank and River View in SCAC East play, the Eagles could still find some footing at the top of the conference standings as the regular season wraps up.

Connell fell to Burbank 54-43 on Jan. 6 and River View 46-34 on Jan. 13, and suffered nonconference losses to top-10 1A programs Okanogan and Zillah, and 2A Ephrata.

When the Eagles get their rematches with Brubank on Friday and River View on Feb. 3 in the regular season finale, they will likely look to junior combo guard Heather Hawkins to lead the charge like she has all season. Hawkins leads the team in points (10.3 per game), rebounds (7.7), assists (2.3) and steals (4.6).

Senior forward Ashton Riner and sophomore guard Mattie Mauseth are each averaging just shy of eight points, and Riner is posting about five rebounds and three steals per game.

Connell has not made state since 2013.

CWAC

PROSSER: While parity runs rampant in the SCAC East, the CWAC has turned into a two-horse race, which suits the Mustangs just fine.

Prosser (13-2, 12-1 No. 6 in 2A RPI) lost to No. 7 Wapato (13-1, 13-1) at home on Dec. 29, but could reclaim at least a share of the CWAC lead when it goes on the road to face the Wolves Saturday.

Despite losing the game, Prosser dominated the paint the first time it played Wapato, and it will look to junior center Brooke Wheeler to step up once again in the rematch. Wheeler scored 13 points and pulled down 23 rebounds Dec. 29, and she is averaging 12.2 points and 12.6 rebounds per game.

Sophomore point guard Marissa Cortes is averaging team highs with 14.6 points, 4.3 assists and 3.1 steals.

Prosser has not reached the state playoffs since winning the second championship in program history in 2011.

EWAC

LIBERTY CHRISTIAN: The next couple weeks will either make or break the Patriots season as they square off against some of the top teams in the EWAC.

Important games for No. 30 LC (6-6, 4-4) down the stretch are: at No. 15 Walla Walla Valley Academy (8-5, 5-5) Wednesday, vs. No. 10 Mabton (10-4, 7-1) Jan. 31 and at No. 1 Dayton (13-0, 10-0) Feb. 3. The Patriots have already lost a game to each of those three teams this season.

Sophomore guard Maddie Godwin is averaging 16.5 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 4.8 steals per game. Senior forward Karlee Souve has 14.6 points, 10.5 boards and 3.2 blocks.

THIS WEEK IN THE MCC

Kamiakin wrapped up the Mid-Columbia Conference’s No. 1 seed for 3A schools with a 79-40 win at Kennewick Saturday night, and will have a shot this weekend to bolster its bid for an overall conference championship.

The Braves (14-1, 9-0 No. 8 in 3A) host Chiawana (9-4, 6-1 No. 19 in 4A) Saturday in a rematch between the MCC’s top teams. Kamiakin rolled past Chiawana 75-52 on Jan. 6 in Pasco.

Richland (7-7, 6-2) will host Southridge (6-7, 3-5) Friday and Kennewick (4-9, 2-6) Saturday.

This story was originally published January 22, 2017 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Turner, Columbia-Burbank girls storming through regular season."