‘They don’t care who gets the baskets as long as they win.’ Gabby Bland gets the baskets — plenty of them — Saturday to lead No. 9 Crescent Valley past Springfield for 5A girls basketball title
By Bob Lundeberg | Photos by Leon Neuschwander
Gabby Bland put Crescent Valley on her back in a performance for the ages at Gill Coliseum.
Forty-four years after the Raiders’ previous state title, Bland drained seven three-pointers and scored 31 points Saturday night as No. 9 Crescent Valley completed its Cinderella run by downing seventh-seeded Springfield, 50-39, in the 5A state championship game.
Bland’s grandmother, Joni Berry (née Fox), played for the Raiders’ 1978 state championship team. Berry was in the crowd Saturday to watch her granddaughter put on a show in their hometown.
“I don’t know,” Bland said when asked about her offensive explosion. “My shooting was on, and it was the right night to have it on.”
Bland made five first-half three-pointers and tallied 19 points as Crescent Valley (22-7) took a 31-23 lead to the locker room. The junior guard hit two more in the third quarter and finished 9 of 12 overall, 7 of 10 from long range and 6 of 6 at the foul line — all in the fourth quarter.
The seven three-pointers tied West Albany’s Kyia Duvall (2014) for the most in a 5A state tournament game.
“She’s just such a great kid,” Raiders head coach Eric Gower said of Bland. “Hard worker, kind, a great leader, a great teammate. And to see her have this game on this stage, I’m just so happy for her.”
The Millers (21-8), who suffered an eight-point loss at Crescent Valley in December, flummoxed their first two state tournament opponents with a combination of zone defenses. Springfield held Silverton to 20 points and defeated Putnam 41-34 the following night.
Crescent Valley almost surpassed Putnam’s game total in the first half as the Millers stuck with their 1-3-1 for nearly every possession. Springfield began to trap ferociously in the second half, but the Raiders calmly moved the ball around the court until an open shot presented itself.
“They played pretty well, Gabby Bland played pretty well,” Millers head coach Joe Williamson said. “And we made it a little bit easier tonight than we had the last two nights. But credit to them for that.
“They are a pretty disciplined, fundamental team. … We needed to put more pressure on the ball than we did. We made it too easy to see the passes over the top. But we didn’t, and credit to them. They were very disciplined and played a very good game.”
Gower said the Raiders have been an unselfish team all season. Even though Bland was white-hot from everywhere, Crescent Valley never forced the ball to her.
“They are always willing to make the extra pass, and sometimes it works to our disadvantage and we’ll pass up a shot trying to get a better look,” Gower said. “But they are a team and they want to play together, and they don’t care who gets the baskets as long as they win.”
When Bland wasn’t shooting, the ball often ended up in Molly Campbell’s hands. The 6-foot-1 junior center had a strong game off the bench with 10 points, four rebounds and a block.
Campbell played nearly as many minutes as star freshman center Taelyn Bentley, who averaged 12 points and eight rebounds in the first two tournament games.
“She has such nice touch inside,” Bland said of Campbell, one of the Raiders’ four juniors. Crescent Valley does not have a senior on its roster.
“She got some good rebounds and she made some really good shots tonight.”
Junior guard Nicole Huang shadowed Springfield’s Danaeja Romero-Ah Sam for most of the game and recorded six assists on offense.
The Raiders held Springfield, which pulled within five with 1:10 remaining, to five fourth-quarter points.
“Our defense … continued to get better each day and each week,” Gower said. “Nicole is just a special defender. She can go out there and lock people down, and we just try to make other people beat us.”
Romero-Ah Sam had 11 points, three rebounds, three assists and four steals to lead the Millers, who led 14-13 following a crisply played opening quarter. Bland netted eight of Crescent Valley’s points while Kylie Rankins paced the Millers with six.
Bland canned three of her five first-half three-pointers in the second period, the last of which put the Raiders up 29-20. The lead swelled to 11 on a Campbell jumper before Kenzi Phillips trimmed it to 31-23 with a triple in the closing seconds of the half.
Springfield scored the first four points of the third quarter and began to have success with trapping Crescent Valley in the corners, but the Millers lost track of Bland on a rotation and paid the price. Williamson took an immediate timeout after the blown assignment that left his team down 34-27.
“We were close on some stuff, things were right there for us, but they just escaped through,” Williamson said.
The Raiders led 41-34 after three quarters and ran plenty of clock in the fourth with methodical passing. Springfield trimmed it to 44-39 on a Phillips steal and score, but Bland came through at the foul line.
Much like Crescent Valley, Springfield — also the runner-up in 2019 — is a youth-led group with a bright future. Romero-Ah Sam is only a sophomore, and freshman forward Juju Henderson had 10 points and seven rebounds Saturday.
“Kudos to (Crescent Valley) — what a great team. And kudos to my team,” Williamson said. “I love our team. I love what we did, and we just came up short today.”
Crescent Valley played a brutal early-season schedule that included matchups with 6A state tournament teams Lakeridge and West Linn. Sitting at 2-4 in mid-December, the Raiders hoped the losses would pay dividends down the road.
Senior-less Crescent Valley stunned No. 1 Willamette to open the state tournament, pulled away from No. 4 Ridgeview in the semis, and reaped the ultimate reward Saturday night.
“I feel like the main thing that helped us is we relaxed, and we just had fun playing,” Bland said. “I feel like at the beginning of the season, we were kind of tight and nervous because we were all really young. Then we figured out what we needed to do, we knew what to do, and we got it done.”