Camas, Tahoma advance to meet for Class 4A District III girls basketball championship

UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. - The discrepancies existed depending on whose statistics someone looked at following the second Class 4A West Central/Southwest girls bi-district semifinal game Wednesday night.

There was that lopsided final score, of course. Top-ranked Camas took all of the suspense out of the outcome with a productive second quarter and coasted to a 59-37 victory over No. 5 Sumner at Curtis High School.

The victory propelled the Papermakers into the bi-district championship game on Saturday against Tahoma.

"Camas, we’ve never won any bi-districts," junior Parker Mairs said. "It can definitely be our year. But we’ve got to take it one game at a time and just keep going."

With little to no suspense over the outcome, the other discrepancy that garnered a bit of attention once the final buzzer sounded was just a bit of fun. Had the Spartans hoisted up 59 or 61 shots?

Either way, Sumner made just 10 of those shots, including just one in the first quarter and three over the second eight minutes of action. The Papermakers stats had it at 10-for-59, and Camas collected a massive 34 defensive rebounds off those misses.

"I heard 10-for-61 somewhere," Sumner girls coach Katie Hyppa said. "The ball wasn’t going in the hoop. It’s hard for us to get in a rhythm when those little chippies aren’t falling. Either way, it wasn’t good."

The shooting didn’t start much better for Camas. In fact, with 2 minutes, 58 seconds remaining in the first quarter, neither team had yet made a field goal. And the score read 2-1 in favor of Sumner, which had made two of four free throws to the Papermakers one of two.

Mairs finally broke the ice one second later when she took a good pass, lined up a 3-pointer and hit nothing but net. Those three points pushed Camas in front, 4-2, and the Papermakers never trailed again.

"I think we finally settled in a little," Camas girls coach Scott Thompson said. "Even in the beginning of the game I felt like we were really happy with our shot selection. I felt like we were getting good looks. So maybe it’s just being here all day, driving up the two hours got us a little bit off. But ultimately it felt like we were getting really good shots."

Mairs made that first one with 2:57 to go in the quarter. She made her fourth field goal to finish off the first-half scoring with another 3-pointer for a 29-14 lead at the half. She was the only person in double figures scoring in the half with 10 points.

"We just started with our defense," Mairs said. "Our offense starts with our defense. I just happened to be the open player, and Kierra (Thompson) and Riley (Sanz) just found me and I knocked them down."

Mairs finished with 12 points, one of three Papermakers in double figures. Sophie Buzzard led Camas with 13 points. Ultimately, Lainee Houillon scored 14 for the Spartans to lead all scorers.

"Really, once Parker took the lid off it a little, it started to go down better," coach Thompson said.

And the Papermakers get a chance at a first district title.

Tahoma 50, Emerald Ridge 45 – Hope Hassmann scored seven of her 16 points over the final 2:17 as the Bears advanced to Saturday's bi-district title game.

Before Hassmann took over down the stretch, the Bears got a huge effort from junior Lily Cavanaugh, who finished with a game-high 17 points.

Tahoma built leads of 29-17 and 40-31 despite the teams combining to score just 31 points in the first half, with the Bears leading 18-13 at the break. Still, trailing by those nine points, the Jaguars ran off a 9-0 run to tie the game at 40-40 with 2:42 to go, setting the stage for Hassmann’s takeover.