Kamiak revels in milestone victory

Published 11:31 pm Tuesday, February 5, 2008

New coaches always dream of guiding their program to a defining victory. Jody Schauer and his Kamiak High School girls basketball players got one Monday night.

Fueled by a fourth-quarter surge in which it scored 21 points and allowed just two, Kamiak came from behind and upset the Meadowdale Mavericks 67-60. Jordan Keller, Taige’ Kussman, Kelsey Patrick and Julia Church combined to score 52 points for third-place Kamiak, which improved to 11-4 in Western Conference South Division games (14-6 overall) with one game to go in the regular season.

Second-place Meadowdale, one of the state’s most consistently successful programs, slipped to 12-3, 16-3. The Mavericks’ other losses this season came against first-place Jackson (15-0, 18-1).

Meadowdale rarely loses division contests. It won 95 consecutive Wesco South games during a stretch that began in January 2001 and ended in January 2006. Besides Jackson, Kamiak is the only league foe to beat Meadowdale in the past seven seasons.

Schauer, Kamiak’s first-year coach, said the victory is a huge step forward in elevating the Knights’ program.

The key to Kamiak’s stunning fourth quarter against Meadowdale was “awesome” man-to-man defense, said Schauer: “We locked them up and didn’t give them much of anything.”

Meadowdale’s only points in the period came on two foul shots. Meanwhile, Kamiak generated lots of transition baskets, forced a barrage of turnovers and made clutch free throws, Schauer said.

“As we got more confident, (Meadowdale) kind of tightened up a little bit. Everything started going our way,” he said.

Kamiak earned the momentous victory on senior night and celebrated with a post-game reception for its Class of 2008 players, Schauer said.