Skyline’s Tailer Thomas puts body on the line to ensure first-ever Idaho state championship appearance in stunner of No. 1 Blackfoot

NAMPA - It should have been a moment of pure jubilation. 

A 50-48 stunner of No. 1, previously unbeaten and defending state champion Blackfoot Friday in the semifinals of the Idaho Class 4A State Girls Basketball Tournament at the Ford Idaho Center.

A team the Skyline High School girls basketball team had lost to four times by an average of more than 19 points per game. It was the Grizzlies first time advancing to the state championship game in program history and one of the biggest upsets the tournament has ever seen.

But instead, it was bittersweet.

The fourth-seeded Grizzlies (15-13) stormed the court and started jumping up and down in the huddle only to notice that their best player and senior captain was not with them. Forty feet to their left was senior center Tailer Thomas, laying down in the key screaming in agony and clutching her right knee - a likely torn ACL.

Skyline will play No. 2 Burley (24-1) at 6 p.m. Saturday in the title game at the Ford Idaho Center.

“It’s not the way I wanted to end the game,” Thomas said. “But coming out with a win against a team you’ve been battling with for the past two years, is a huge accomplishment for us and I’m so excited.”

Thomas had to be helped out of the locker room by the trainers and her parents with her knee fully wrapped. But she emerged to the sound of “MVP” chants from her teammates.

And with good reason.

Thomas shot 67% percent from the field, including going 3 for 3 from downtown, for 13 points. But her biggest contributions came in the final seconds. 

Hadley Humpherys missed the back end of a free throw that would have given Blackfoot a 49-48 lead with 13.3 seconds left. Senior guard Sienna Taylor then knocked the ball loose from Esperanza Vergara and it ended up in the hands of Thomas, who was fouled.

She headed to the line with 6.2 seconds remaining and the game tied at 48-48.

“The only thing that was going through my mind was, ‘You just have to make this. You just have to make this,’” Thomas said.

She drained both of them.

“She’s really had to step up in the absence of Mattie (Olson) this year as a leader, which I don’t think she was planning on it at the beginning of the season,” Skyline coach Tyrell Keck said. “But she has stepped in and she just leads this team.”

Which included making one final play.

Bronco senior guard Isabelle Arave took the inbounds pass and sprinted right down the court. But Thomas chased Arave down and got right in front of her before she released a floater with 0.6 seconds to go. The shot sailed well over the basket as the final horn sounded. The bench emptied and most of the players on the floor met them at midcourt. But Thomas lay still on the key with tears in her eyes.

“I was running down next to her. She kind of did a little stepback. I went for it and my kneecap just went to the side,” Thomas said.

Skyline coaches and players praised Thomas’ incredible effort afterwards.

“Without her, I don’t think we would have won,” said freshman wing Shay Shippen, who had a team-high 14 points. “She pulled through. She’s the MVP of that game. Nothing could of happened without her.”

Shippen made a huge play of her own. 

When Arave drove the length of the floor for a layin to give Blackfoot a 47-46 lead with 45 seconds to go, Shippen responded with one of her own. She weaved through traffic in the paint for a layup to put Skyline back out in front 48-47 - setting the stage for the late-game dramatics.

“She is just one of those kids that just has that next-level calmness where the big moment is not that big for her,” Keck said. “... That moment right there, that’s just a kid that wants to win. She knew what had to happen and she went and did it.”

Shippen and others like Taylor, who tied with Shippen for 14 points, including giving the Grizzlies their first lead of the game on a layin two minutes into the fourth quarter, kept the team afloat in the wake of adversity after adversity.

Skyline lost all-state and Montana State signee Olson before the season due to a torn ACL. It also only won consecutive games once prior to the start of the tournament and had the worst record going in. 

However, none of that, including an early 8-0 deficit, mattered in the end.

“I knew it was going to be tough,” Keck said. “But I knew we had a couple players that could step up and fill roles. That was the difficult part. The unknown. They absolutely rose to the challenge. It took us so long to figure out our identity (of) who we were. But we did, and we got it figured out at the right time.”

Senior forward Kiana Wright tallied a game-high 19 points, including 14 in the first half. Humpherys added a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Broncos, who saw their 29-game winning streak - the longest in the state- come to a gut-wrenching end.

Blackfoot (25-1) will play Preston at noon Saturday in the third-place game.

PHOTO GALLERY

(All photos by Loren Orr)