The Herald’s 2025-26 Girls Basketball Player of the Year: Sienna Capelli

Published 4:15 pm Tuesday, March 24, 2026

SNOHOMISH – In her first three years with the Snohomish girls basketball program, Sienna Capelli had to conform her game to what best suited the team.

Primarily playing outside her natural position at point guard, Capelli sacrificed scoring to facilitate. While some players would bristle at the idea of being shoehorned into a different role, Capelli eagerly accepted the assignment.

“She’s always done what she needed to for the team,” Snohomish coach Ken Roberts said. “Whether it was to be the point guard for us for those years or — and she could have scored a lot more points. She could have done a lot of things by not needing to be point guard, but at the same time, she gave us the best chance to win.”

That changed entering this season, Capelli’s senior year.

With the arrival of freshman point guard Lainey Daclison and the graduation of star scorer Tyler Gildersleeve-Stiles, Roberts had a new directive for Capelli: If she did not shoot 15-20 times per game, she would not be doing what she needed to for the team.

For the first time, the best chance Snohomish had to win would be building around Capelli’s strengths instead of the other way around. As the new top option on offense and a tone-setter on the defensive end, both Capelli and the Panthers excelled.

After leading Snohomish to the 3A State semifinals averaging 19.9 points on 54% shooting with 8.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, Capelli was named The Herald’s All-Area Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

“(Since) the beginning of the season, I felt just comfortable,” Capelli said. “I think I always had it. It’s just different roles. I think that I mentally wasn’t there last year, just like scoring a lot — and even thinking to score or looking at the hoop — but this year, I feel like I knew I had to do it in order for our team to win games.”

The end of the 2024-25 season was a brutal one for the entire Snohomish program, but especially for Capelli in particular. She sustained a concussion in the Wesco Crossover game and also caught the flu, which caused her to miss most of the postseason. Roberts estimates that of the final 23 days of the season, Capelli was only there for three of them.

Despite entering the District 1 3A Tournament as the top seed, the Panthers fell in the semifinals before losing to Meadowdale 61-59 in overtime in the winner-to-state consolation game. It was a demoralizing finish for a team that held aspirations for a deep run at the state tournament.

For a while, Capelli put most of the blame on herself. As much as she had to recover from the physical toll of the season, she needed to build back up mentally as well.

“Just being in the right headspace and realizing that this game is just to have fun,” Capelli said. “Obviously it’s to win, too, but I think just enjoying the game is just the main point of it for me. And last year it was hard to do that, a little bit, for me to just enjoy the game because a lot of things happened last year. So it was hard, and it was especially hard to lose a lot of games at the end of the season.”

With a focus on having fun while helping the team play to its full potential, Capelli quickly bought into her new role as a more ball-dominant player. Except initially, it didn’t translate to wins for her team. Snohomish started the season 2-6, but according to Roberts, Capelli was one of the only players pulling their weight. She averaged roughly 20 points and 11 rebounds per game in that stretch, and the losses primarily came down to a banged-up roster and overall lack of execution on the defensive end.

Around winter break, the team had a “heart-to-heart” meeting to establish a team-wide commitment to defense and rebounding. Those were never an issue for Capelli, but her work ethic set the tone for the rest of the team. Roberts never had to worry about Capelli’s effort at practice. Whether she was working on improving her own craft or challenging teammates in practice reps, Capelli earned the reputation of being one of the top four hardest workers Roberts has ever seen pass through the program in his 25 years at the helm.

“She’s that hard a worker, I think the kids respect that, too,” Roberts said. “It’s like, ‘We need to do more to help out,’ and so she’s part of (turning the team around) that way, but it was the other kids that needed to step up for sure.

“I said several times: She was Batman all year, but Robin didn’t show up early.”

As the team got healthier and teammates started to follow Capelli’s lead, Snohomish eventually turned into the entire Justice League. Fellow senior Kendall Hammer started to shoot at a higher clip. Junior Lola Rotondo became a rebounding machine in the post. Junior Lizzie Allyn stepped into a larger role running point after Daclison went down with a torn ACL in late January.

The Panthers rattled off 18 straight wins all the way to the 3A State semifinals, picking up the District 1 3A title along the way. Through it all, Capelli was the engine that kept things humming.

“I think that always comes to me,” Capelli said about the intensity she brings to the court. “I have a ton of energy when I play basketball, but I think energy is contagious, especially on our basketball team. Just being able to do that with my teammates and for them to be able to do that back to me and have that energy back is nice, and it makes the game much easier for us to play in.”

That energy was never more apparent than during the Panthers’ 41-36 overtime win against Stanwood in the State 3A quarterfinals. Capelli went off for 30 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and three steals, adding in three assist to factor into 37 of Snohomish’s 41 points. Every time the Panthers needed to make a shot down the stretch, Capelli delivered. Throughout the game, she would disrupt Stanwood shooting lanes and force turnovers in ways even beyond what showed up on the stat sheet.

As far as individual efforts go, it was a masterclass in complete basketball.

“Out of all the season we had, I just feel like that game, I was just being the best leader I could, and it was nice to have that,” Capelli said. “Definitely my high moment. … When I got to the (Tacoma) Dome, even before we started playing the game, I just felt so much joy and appreciation for this team. Because I love the girls so much, and they’re just all so fun, and just being able to be there was super big for us.”

Snohomish’s win streak would end with a loss in the semifinals to Eastside Catholic, the eventual champions. While the Panthers fell short of their ultimate goal, Capelli had already solidified her legacy in the program. She ends her career ranking second on both the scoring and rebounding list for Snohomish girls basketball, but it goes beyond the raw numbers.

Roberts argues that if Capelli played in a more high-tempo offense as opposed to the Panthers’ lower-scoring, defensive-minded system, she could have averaged 30 points per game. He also touted her versatility on the defensive end, which allowed her to fit into whatever zone structure Roberts decided worked best within any given matchup.

“She’s so fast, explosive, athletic. That’s part of it,” Roberts said. “But she works hard. I mean, you have to work hard on defense, and she does. … We don’t score as many points as some other teams, but defensively, there’s nobody better. I can’t think of very many games this year where you would say, ‘Wow, Sienna wasn’t the best player on the court today.’”

Capelli will continue her career at the next level, but she’s still deciding between a pair of schools in California: Biola University and St. Mary’s College. She will depart Snohomish in a much better place mentally than she was a year ago.

“I’m really happy about everything that I got to accomplish,” Capelli said. “And also just being able to play with the best group of girls, through freshman year to senior year, is just amazing. These girls are so amazing, and I love them all, and I think they’re friendships I’ll definitely cherish for the rest of my life.”