After a dominant showing Friday afternoon in the semifinals, the Tualatin girls basketball team is heading to the state championship game.
The two teams traded buckets for a few minutes, with Willamette jumping out to a 10-6 lead about three minutes in. Tualatin then closed out the first quarter on a 17-0 run to lead 23-10 en route to a 65-40 win at the Chiles Center at University of Portland.
“We’ve got to start with the defense, and then hopefully, at some point, the offense kicks in,” Tualatin Coach Wes Pappas said. “The offense kicked in right away, and we just kept on keeping pace and eventually they started missing some shots, but we just kept going offensively.”
The Tualatin offense early consisted of feeding center Jordyn Smith in the post and letting her get to work. She hit a few tough shots down low, drawing extra attention from the defense, which allowed her to find her teammates cutting to the hoop for a few easy buckets.
“Jordan has improved her post-game just massively,” Pappas said. “She is really hard to guard one-on-one and if you double, then she’s a great passer. She has just become a really great passer for us. She’s such a weapon out there.”
Smith finished the game with 12 points, seven rebounds and two blocks. Tualatin’s leading scorer was freshman phenom Love Lei Best, who dropped 21 to go with her five assists. Best was 9-16 from the field, including 3-4 from downtown.
“It’s out of this world,” Pappas said. “When she stepped into the gym this summer, it was like, wow, I just had never seen that level of composure by a senior, let alone a freshman. She’s special.”
Best is joined in the starting lineup by another freshman, Kendall Dawkins, who scored 11 points in the semifinal win, and was a perfect 4-4 from the field, as well as 2-2 from the free throw line. At times, Willamette managed to use its size to pull down some offensive rebounds, so Dawkins spent some time down low, as well, and grabbed a game-high eight rebounds.
Juniors Alex Padilla and Ries Miadich chipped in 12 points and seven points, respectively.
Beyond the offense, it was yet again that stifling Tualatin defense that landed the Timberwolves in the state title game. Tualatin held Willamette to just 12 percent shooting from the field in the second half, including a 7 percent field goal percentage in the third quarter.
A rather big test awaits Tualatin in the state title game: Clackamas. Earlier this year, ESPN ranked Clackamas as one of the top-10 high school teams in the country, and the Cavaliers are led by two Division 1-bound stars: USC-commit Jazzy Davidson and Sara Barhoum, who is heading to University of Oregon after high school.
“They look like one of the best teams in Oregon history,” Pappas said, citing their national recognition and star power.
The two teams met on Jan. 2 at Tualatin, with Clackamas pulling out 55-53 win. In that game, Davidson scored 28 and Barhoum scored 15 on five made three-pointers. The senior duo is looking for its second state title, as Clackamas won the championship in 2023.
The game is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Chiles Center.
Pappas knows his team has a tough last hurdle to become state champs, but he said competing with those great teams is how you truly tell if you belong there.
“Here’s the big team,” he said. “Everyone knows about them. They’re famous. Jazz is going to be in the WNBA as a really high draft pick at some point. That’s the deal. We know who we’re going against, and we’re going in confident.”
