You’ve got a friend

Published 12:01 am Wednesday, February 9, 2011

EDMONDS — Even before they were friends, Madeline Kasper and Margreet Barhoum were rivals.

It started when they were small girls, on the floor of the Edmonds church attended by their families. Kasper was two months older and had learned to walk first. So she would toddle away and Barhou

m would crawl along behind, trying desperately to keep up.

Eventually the two youngsters were walking together, talking together, playing together, attending school from kindergarten through eighth grade together and, over the years, becoming outstanding basketball players together.

Today they are two of the top point guards in the Western Conference. Both juniors, they will guide their teams into tonight’s opening round of the Class 4A and Class 3A District I girls high school basketball tournaments. Kasper plays at 4A Edmonds-Woodway, while Barhoum is at nearby Meadowdale, a 3A school.

And although these two onetime teammates are now competitors, neither remembers a time when they were not bound by friendship.

“We used to be inseparable,” Kasper said. “Now that we’re in high school, we don’t see each other as much as we used to. But she’s one of those friends that I might not see for a month, and then I could talk to her as if I just saw her yesterday.”

“She’ll always be a best friend that I can go to,” Barhoum said. “Even though we don’t see each other as much now, I still consider her almost like a sister. She knows me better than anyone.”

They took up basketball as kindergarten students at Holy Rosary Catholic School in Edmonds. They often played together, first on school teams and then on select teams, but at times they were also on different teams.

Holy Rosary’s curriculum continues through eighth grade, and at that point Kasper and Barhoum had decisions to make about high school. Their families considered Everett’s Archbishop Murphy and Seattle’s Holy Names, private schools that would have allowed the girls to play together. But in time they both opted for public schools.

And although they live only a short distance apart, Kasper ended up at Edmonds-Woodway and Barhoum at Meadowdale.

Last season, before an Edmonds-Woodway vs. Meadowdale game in which they were introduced as starters for the first time, the girls skipped the traditional pregame handshake for a hug. It was a sweet moment, although all that tenderness usually goes out the window once the game begins.

“After the game we go back to being friends,” Barhoum said. “But on the court you block everything out and she’s just another player.”

“We’re both really competitive,” Kasper agreed.

So competitive, in fact, that it once led to a brief fracture in their friendship. After a game between the two teams last season, which Meadowdale won, Kasper avoided shaking Barhoum’s hand when the teams lined up after the final horn.

Kasper called to apologize a few days later, and now the girls laugh about the incident.

“I wasn’t mad at her personally,” Kasper said with a sheepish smile.

“That’s the longest we’ve stayed mad about something (to do with) basketball,” Barhoum said.

Both girls have reasons to be hopeful as they head into this year’s postseason. Barhoum led the Wesco 3A in scoring this season, averaging 22.0 points a game while shooting 56 percent from the field. She also contributed 3.1 assists and 2.8 steals a game to a Meadowdale team that finished 12-8 overall, 10-4 in conference, and is the No. 3 Wesco seed into the district tournament.

“She’s really good offensively,” Kasper said. “She’s a good scorer. She can shoot and she can get to the basket. Her offense is really good.”

Kasper, meanwhile, is the playmaker on a powerful Edmonds-Woodway team laden with standouts. She averaged 9.4 points, 4.0 assists and 2.7 steals a game for the Warriors, who finished with an 18-3 regular-season record, 14-0 in league, and are hoping to improve on a fifth-place finish at last season’s 4A state tournament.

“(The Warriors) are really good,” Barhoum said. “I think they’ll win state. Every single person on that team knows their role and they play really well together. They just have really good team chemistry.”