This Tri-Cities basketball superstar led her team to the WNBA playoffs

No matter what happens Tuesday night, Kennewick High graduate Leilani Mitchell has had one heck of a season for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics.

Mitchell, 35, and a long-time veteran in women’s professional basketball, has led the once-struggling Mystics back into the playoffs.

Washington takes on the Phoenix Mercury — Mitchell’s team last season — in a one-game play-in contest at 6 p.m. Sept 15. To even get a chance to make the playoffs is impressive.

Mitchell and the Mystics started the WNBA season in the bubble in Bradenton, Fla., by winning their first three games.

Then they lost 12 of their next 13 games. With six contests remaining, it would be easy to believe that Mitchell was making plans to leave the bubble soon and head back to Australia, where she lives with her family.

But on Sept. 4, Mitchell took control of a game against the Chicago Sky, scoring 20 points and dishing off 12 assists, and the Mystics won 79-69.

It started a streak of winning five of the final six games of the regular season for Washington, getting the team into the playoffs on the final day of the season.

Mitchell finished the season averaging 9.5 points and 5.4 assists. She finished fourth in the WNBA among assists leaders.

The interesting part was that Mitchell made the decision last off-season to sign with Washington because of the lineup the team had coming back after winning the WNBA title in 2019.

She also had played for head coach Mike Thibault before, and enjoyed it.

But before she got to the bubble this summer, the Mystics had lost four of their returning starters — Elena Delle Donna, Natasha Cloud, LaToya Sanders and Tina Charles — when they opted not to play, either for health reasons or social justice matters.

So Mitchell was forced into being a leader of a young team, and she came through.

Thibault — who used to coach the Omaha Racers against the Tri-City Chinook in the old Continental Basketball Association — has gone on record that he’d wish Mitchell would shoot the ball more.

But he can’t doubt her other skills, including leadership.

So whatever happens in the WNBA players, Mitchell and her team have set a solid base for the 2021 WNBA season, which should be even better with the return of those four starters.

Mitchell still has a second year left in her two-year, $250,000 contract with the Mystics, and she just recently signed another one-year contract with the Australian-based Southside Flyers in the WNBL.

Finally, if the Summer Olympics are allowed to happen next year in Tokyo, she’ll be part of the Australian Women’s National Team (she holds dual citizenship). So Mitchell has plenty of basketball ahead of her too.

Kennewick’s Clayton pulls off upset

Congratulations to Kennewick’s Kelly Clayton, who pulled off the upset in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Friday night by beating favored Hailey Cowan at 136 pounds in the Legacy Fighting Association 91.

Clayton, at 36 with a 2-2 record entering the event, hit Cowan with a right that knocked the 25-year-old down.

Cowan tried to roll over and get up as Clayton came flying in to grabbing her around the neck. As Cowan got up, Clayton had latched on to the youngster’s upper half of her body with a Guillotine chokehold.

Cowan fell forward, Clayton underneath her. However, Clayton never let loose, and referee Vance Swerden tapped her out. Official result was submission 46 seconds into the second round of the three-round fight.

Clayton now goes to 3-2 as a professional, while Cowan drops to 5-2.

Now what happens? Clayton’s trainer, Anthony Hamlett, told the Herald on Sunday that Clayton’s agent had been contacted by the owner of Invicta after the fight Friday to congratulate her. Invicta Fighting Championships is an all-pro women’s mixed martial arts organization.

“She said she wants to get her booked,” Hamlett said.

In fact, Clayton caught the eye of the Invicta organization when she was a late replacement on an Invicta card in early March in Kansas.

Hamlett had told the Herald he thought there might be some cancellations before that event, and he already had started getting Clayton ready for a fight just in case.

Clayton won her fight, and that got her a spot on Friday’s LFA 91 card.

Ex-Prep quarterback

Dante Mauiri, who played quarterback for Tri-Cities Prep the past two seasons, ended up transferring to Hellgate High School in Montana.

It allows Mauiri a chance to get a mostly full season in this fall as a senior, since high school football in Washington has been moved to the spring.

In Montana, conferences have dropped any nonleague games, and players are allowed two people to attend games in person right now.

Mauiri is the starting QB for Hellgate, which lost to Big Sky 48-20 last Friday night on the University of Montana campus.

But Mauiri shined in the loss, going 22-for-43 passing for 248 yards, throwing three touchdown passes against just one interception. According to MaxPreps, in his three-year prep career in Washington (2017 with DeSales, 2018-19 with TC Prep), Mauiri has thrown for 6,920 yards, and 67 TD passes against 26 picks.

Mercer Island legend

High school basketball in the state lost a legend when former Mercer Island boys coach Ed Pepple died in his sleep Monday after a battle with cancer.

Pepple was 88 and hadn’t coached since 2009.

But Pepple carried a 952-306 record, and he won four state championships at Mercer Island. His most noteworthy players may have been Steve Hawes, who played in the NBA; and Quin Snyder, who played for Duke and is currently the head coach for the Utah Jazz.

This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 2:39 PM.