Lake Stevens girls fall to Davis in state quarters

Published 4:04 pm Thursday, March 5, 2026

TACOMA — Nothing about Thursday’s game was simple.

For one, the No. 10 Lake Stevens girls basketball team (22-4) was facing the defending Class 4A champs in No. 1 Davis of Yakima (22-2), whose calculated style of nonstop pressing confuses even the most experienced squads. Loose balls, full-court presses and long outlet passes made for a dizzying brand of basketball.

But one moment in the quarterfinal matchup was as simple as they come. Vikings junior Noelani Tupua took the ball up the floor with the first half coming to a close. No one pressed her as she heaved it from the half-court line.

“I thought I was gonna airball it,” Tupua said after the game.

Nylon.

Tupua’s teammates rushed her as she knocked over senior teammate Tessa Anastasi to the ground by accident.

“I think she understood,” Tupua said with a smile.

The answered prayer cut the halftime deficit to three as the Vikings had proven they could run with the opposing powerhouse.

The second half wasn’t so kind to Lake, as the Pirates’ pace and shooting proved to be too much over a full game, as the Vikings fell behind quickly. By the end of the morning, Davis commanded a 20-point win in a 76-56 final. The loss put Lake Stevens in the consolation bracket, starting with a Friday date with No. 5 Gonzaga Prep on the road to a possible fourth-place finish.

Noelani ended with a team-high 21 points on 10-for-15 shooting while sister Keira Isabelle Tupua finished with 19 points, nine rebounds, five assists and four steals.

Davis was paced by 24 points from junior Isa Garcia and a near 20-20 game from star junior Cheyenne Hull (22 points, 18 rebounds, seven assists, six steals).

In a game dictated by pace and quick outlets, the Pirates won the rebounding margin 46-33, including 20 offensive rebounds, while forcing 20 turnovers.

“We just got tired, made us not think straight … it was hard to get it back going,” Noelani said of the Pirates’ pace.

“I don’t think we quite understood how fast they were going to be after they got the ball,” Lake Stevens head coach Seth Dodge said. “They want to bully people, and we usually are able to hang with that, but they just did it a little bit more.”

An early 13-2 run to claim a seven-point lead set the tone for Davis, as Hull ran fastbreaks quickly after securing the rebound. Faced with a tough hit early, the Vikings refused to back down.

Lake Stevens’ backcourt had to weather an elaborate full-court press all morning, but nifty dribbling from Keira allowed the Viks to get through at times. On the defensive end, she was just as active in forcing deflections.

“We love (Keira) because she just wants to do what it takes to win and believes we can beat anybody in the state. And we really can, we showed it in the first half,” Dodge said.

To that effect, Noelani broke the press with a deep outlet pass to Tessa Anastasi (six points, three rebounds) for an easy layup, while a steal from Keira led to an easy Noelani basket to cut the lead to one at the end of the first.

Davis, a team chock-full of sharpshooters, showed their quality in that regard in the second quarter. Garcia and Deets Parrish (10 points, five rebounds) each knocked down triples, the latter of whom hit from beyond NBA range.

Another coast-to-coast take from Hull extended the lead to 11 before the Vikings prepared their answer. Noelani worked to the cup for two tough layups before she caught a long outlet from Keira to convert a jumper to cut the lead to five in a personal 6-0 run.

A jab step from Keira created just enough space for a triple as the quarter neared a close with the Viks down just three and the traveling fans going crazy in the stands. Some transition layups from Kobe Johnson (12 points) extended the Davis lead back out before Noelani’s heave to end the second.

“I think we were communicating a lot and knowing where their players were, and not letting them get hot,” Noelani said of what worked in the first half.

The teams traded transition buckets to open the third as the breakneck pace continued. Keira and Hull traded well-rounded moments of brilliance, as each notched steals and turned them into fastbreak points with the Pirates leading by six at the midway point of the frame.

Then Hull took over, converting an and-1 layup and hitting a corner triple. A Garcia layup punctuated the 8-0 run as Dodge called a timeout.

What had been a relative strength in Noelani’s eyes in the first half turned sour for Dodge in the second.

“We didn’t find shooters,” Dodge said. “We knew they had shooters and they started hitting shots in the third quarter, and they just hit more shots than we could.”

Indeed, Garcia nabbed a steal and repositioned for a triple on the other end as the lead ballooned to 16.

Although either Tupua sister hit some tough shots to keep Lake hovering around, with senior Kendel Kuehl (five points) making an and-1 layup at one point, the Pirates had made it their game.

Lake Stevens had shot 46.9% from the field in the first half, but that figure dipped to 34.8% in the second half as the Vikings dropped out of the shootout late.

Though their state title hopes came to an end, Wednesday’s win over Bothell ensured Lake Stevens would have a chance at some hardware in the consolation bracket.

Noelani and her squad aren’t taking it for granted.

“We’re gonna play for each other, most definitely,” Noelani said. “We don’t want to go home empty-handed.”