‘Unfinished business.’ Top-seeded Beaverton shuts down West Linn in 6A girls basketball tournament opener; Beavers once again are 2 wins from 1st state title
By René Ferrán | Photos by Taylor Balkom
Seventeen minutes.
That’s how much time elapsed between Allie Roden’s three-pointer from the right wing that brought West Linn into a 12-12 tie with top-seeded Beaverton in the quarterfinals of the OSAA Class 6A girls basketball tournament and Audrey Kahoe’s putback.
In those 17 minutes, the Beavers put on a defensive clinic at the University of Portland’s Chiles Center that led to a record-setting performance. They held the Lions to the fewest points in a 6A tournament game in a 42-19 victory that moved them within two wins of their first championship in program history.
Beaverton will play Clackamas in the first semifinal at 6:30 p.m. Friday, with both teams looking to win its first girls basketball title.
“That’s just been our focus all year,” said junior post Lainey Spear, whose 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting equaled West Linn’s total. “Our practices were so defensively focused, and that’s what we take pride in. Every game, our goal is to make every single shot tough for the other team and hold them to a low number.”
For a long time, the Lions (17-7) flirted with the all-time record for fewest points at the big-school tournament — 17, scored by Crescent Valley in the third-place game in 1980.
Roden’s tying three came with 6:45 left in the second quarter. In the interim that spanned the entire third period and the first 2½ minutes of the fourth, the Lions went 0 for 11, missed two free throws and turned the ball over eight times.
“I was just really proud of our team and how we responded to not as strong a first half as we would’ve liked,” said Beavers junior Zoe Borter, who scored 16 points. “It just really started on the defensive end and just playing great team defense, everyone talking and helping each other, and that showed with them not scoring in that quarter.”
Olivia McVicker’s banked three-pointer from the right wing with 2:29 left finally got the Lions over that hump, but West Linn’s 19 points still matched the fewest at the big-school tournament in the past two decades (Springfield scored 19 in a first-round loss to Glencoe in 2002). Only Crescent Valley and Roseburg (18 in 1985) scored fewer.
“You’ve got to be able to score,” Lions coach Brooke Cates said. “But they are such tremendous defenders. They came out that second half with as much intensity with their defense, which made our scoring really difficult.”
Beaverton’s suffocating defense also held West Linn scoreless for the first five minutes of the game. However, the Beavers (23-1) didn’t set the nets ablaze themselves in the first half. They led only 17-12 at halftime as they struggled to solve West Linn’s 1-3-1 zone — something Cates only installed this week knowing they needed to do something different after losing 49-20 to Beaverton early in the season.
“We knew we needed to throw the kitchen sink at them because they’re that good a team,” Cates said. “We had to mix it up a little bit, and the kids bought in and played it really well, and we did kind of stop Beaverton from scoring too easily.”
Beavers coach Kathy Adelman Naro thought her team didn’t attack the zone as well as it could have, becoming stagnant and not moving the ball crisply
“They’ve got some seniors and some quick, long guards, and it bothered us for a while,” Adelman Naro said. “We needed to reverse the ball and attack gaps, slip behind their zone and score from there.”
All three adjustments came into play during an opening flurry to the second half that saw the Beavers push the lead to 29-12 on Borter’s layup with 1:30 left in the third period.
“Obviously, the nerves were there, which is why we were kind of a little frazzled that first half,” Spear said. “But once we calmed down, moved the ball and attacked and kicked, we were fine.”
While the Beavers settled into an offensive rhythm, the Lions never could. They finished 7 of 26 (26.9 percent) from the field and had 14 turnovers, including eight steals, that Beaverton converted into 18 points.
“I was really proud of my girls in that first half, and we had a lot of hope going into the second if we could continue to keep them off-balance,” Cates said. “But they adjusted well, and my kids, I think they were nervous. Playing in the Chiles Center is such a big deal for all these young ladies, and I think nerves played a little bit on our shooting. We missed a lot of point-blank shots.”
She now hopes her team has shrugged off the nerves enough to come back Friday morning for a 9 a.m. consolation matchup against Three Rivers League rival Lakeridge. The Pacers (22-5), who won the league title, swept the season series.
“That game after you lose the next day, that game has a lot to do with your team’s character,” Cates said. “That heart and grit. You’ve got to get up early after you’ve lost in the quarterfinals. It kind of shows a lot about who you are as a team, your culture, that heart and grit. And I think my kids will show up.”
The Beavers, meanwhile, are back in the same spot they were two seasons ago — the top seed coming off a defensive-minded quarterfinal win — before the pandemic shut down the tournament.
“I definitely think there’s some unfinished business,” said Borter, who played 13 minutes off the bench in that 37-26 win over Southridge. “Especially for those seniors that we played with in our freshman year. I really want to finish it for them.”
Spear was another freshman who was an important cog off the bench in 2019-20 for a team that featured three Division I signees. She’s now one of the leaders who hopes to get Beaverton back to its first final since 2002 and earn its first title.
“Obviously, I have a different role this year,” Spear said. “I’ve been here before, and for our younger kids, it’s our job to lead them, because I know they can get nervous.”
Standing in Beaverton’s path is a Clackamas team that starts three freshmen but hardly looked cowed in an opening 70-48 rout of Lakeridge.
The teams met in December at the PIL Holiday Classic, with the Beavers handing Clackamas its first loss of the season, 50-44. Since then, the Cavaliers (25-2) returned last spring’s Mt. Hood Conference player of the year, junior Rhyan Mogel, who had six points coming off the bench in her third game back from a torn ACL.
“Obviously, Clackamas is a really good team,” Borter said. “They’re really young and have some really good players. For us, it’s about playing together and just focusing on ourselves, coming in and trying to take away what they’re good at.”
