Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Colton Reaction
Colton vs. Neah
Colton starters leap off the bench at the final buzzer of their seventh straight state championship. From the left are MaryAnn Jacobs, Savannah Chadwick, Meghan Devorak, Haley Meyer, Zoe Moser and Winnie Schultheis.
A slow, plodding start led to a flourish by the Colton girls in an 89-70 win over Sunnyside Christian to take their seventh consecutive 1B state championship Saturday in Spokane.
It played like a Nirvana song.
After trailing 15-6 and 20-10, a Wildcat surge built and then blew open into a chorus of catch-and-shoot three-pointers, Zoe Moser drives, wingspan defense and running to time outs. All the Colton signatures were there in the final, setting records for point-total in a championship game and three-pointers (15).
Moser scored 35 points on 12-for-19 shooting while Savannah Chadwick had 23, including six three-pointers. MaryAnn Jacobs and Meghan Devorak both added eight.
For a third straight year, an early Colton deficit marked the title game.
This time it began with a lumbering bass line of Sunnyside Christian free throws, while Colton kept missing shots or getting rejected. The Knights’ point guard Sailor Liefke pulled down a Meghan Devorak attempt and took it the length of the floor for 15-6. A minute later, Liefke took off on another long drive for 20-10.
Then Chadwick hit a three-pointer from the top of the key.
It cut the lead to 20-15. Her second one made it 20-18.
Moser then bolted for a fast break lay-up and it was tied at 20.
Here we are now, entertain us.
Moser hit a corner three-pointer and Kendyl Druffel cut through the lane for a lay-up.
Sunnyside Christian answered with two shots but by the time Moser stole the ball from the Knights’ Annie Brouwer and threw it out to Winnie Schultheis - who missed the ensuing lay-up but Chadwick put it back up and in - Colton led by five.
Chadwick hit another catch-and-shoot three-pointer for 35-28.
Druffel followed with one more for 38-30 and Moser, with a weaving move through the lane, put the lead at 10 at halftime.
Opening the second half at Spokane Arena, Moser drove and banked in a one-handed six-foot shot for 46-32 with 6:48 left in the third.
Colton took over. It was Moser again from the top of the key for 49-33. She followed that with a catch-and-shoot three-pointer, 54-37.
Above the floor, the Arena’s electronic boards touted Sept. 30 tickets for Styx, Def Leppard and Tesla, but this was something different - something demoralizing.
On the Wildcats’ next possession, Moser caught a pass on the fast break, dribbled twice and took it up for the lay-in, colliding with Liefke. A whistle blew and the Sunnyside Christian freshman’s back hit the floor.
She looked up at the ref: blocking foul. She dropped her head back onto the court.
Moser made the free throw for 57-39. A minute later, her older sister Jenna – a four-time state winner from the class of 2014 – stood behind the baseline for an interview with SWX television, a hand-drawn t-shirt on. On one shoulder a simple illustration depicted a bracket: Colton vs. “You,” with the Wildcats advancing.
By the end of the third quarter, Colton lead 64-49. A three-pointer from MaryAnn Jacobs soon made it a 20-point game. They were on their way to a seventh straight state championship.
At the final buzzer, Colton players leapt out of their seats in jubilation. The gold ball was wheeled out onto the floor for the winners. And they ran to it.
“This last game was a culmination of everything,” said 10th year coach Clark Vining. “We kept our composure, did a good job of staying focused, sticking to our guns.”
“It’s more stressful as a senior but also more rewarding,” said Colton’s Schultheis, who won her fourth.
Brouwer led Sunnyside Christian with 25 points in the game while Katelyn Banks scored 21 and Liefke 11.
“It’s great, I love it. I missed it,” said Courtney Kimberling, a Colton senior who returned to the team after spending last year as a cheerleader. The cheer squad disbanded – without a coach this year – while Kimberling nonetheless had planned to play basketball her last season.
As part of her time away as a cheerleader, she took a break from basketball for seven months.
“It was a great experience this year,” Kimberling said. “We were a weird family, but a close family.”
Each season the fire is there.
“You win one and think, ‘We want to do this again,’ and you’re so excited your hard work paid off,” Schultheis said.
“It means a lot,” said Vining, who is assisted by Ben Emerson. “It’s awesome to see. One of the great things about winning is to see the reactions, the emotion on faces.”
This year at state, on the way to their newest championship, Colton beat three teams with a total of four previous losses all season: Sunnyside Christian (22-2), Neah Bay (18-1) and Pateros (21-1).
The Wildcats completed 2014-15 undefeated, for the second year in a row, amidst a state-record winning streak of 71 games. Their collection of seven straight state basketball championships is the longest of all classifications, both boys and girls, in the history of Washington.
Colton 63,
Neah Bay 23
In a semifinal matchup of wheat-town girls vs. daughters of the Makah tribe, Colton led 32-7 in the second quarter. From there the Wildcats continued to cruise, making nine three-pointers in the game, forcing 20 turnovers and out-rebounding the Red Devils 44-25.
Chadwick led Colton with 16 points while Zoe Moser scored 15 with four assists. MaryAnn Jacobs added 14 points and six rebounds.
Faye Chartwell led Neah Bay with 16 points.
Colton 72,
Pateros 60
Moser scored 36 points with six assists and seven rebounds as Colton put away the Nannies in the fourth quarter of a close first round game.
Leading by three points at the end of the third, the Wildcats outscored Pateros 16-7 the rest of the way to advance.
Chadwick guarded the Nannies’ leading scorer, Lorie LeDoux, limiting her to eight points on 3-for-10 shooting.
All the while, DeDoux’s teammate Ashton Steggall scored 19 points as Pateros shot 7-for-11 for three-pointers.
Additional scorers for Colton incuded Chadwick with 16 points and Devorak with nine.
The fast break is on against Neah Bay in the state semifinal.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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