Kaleo Anderson is The Herald’s 2024-25 Girls Basketball Player of the Year
Published 9:00 am Tuesday, April 1, 2025
SHORELINE — An athlete can never truly prepare for handling the weight of a win-or-go-home game. The pressure is unequaled in sports and only presents itself to a lucky few every so often.
When junior guard Kaleo Anderson found herself taking the ball up the floor for King’s High School girls basketball down two in the waning seconds of a Class 1A State semifinal against No. 1 Lynden Christian on March 7, she seemed as prepared as anyone. Head coach Dan Taylor had called a play for her to receive a pick on the left wing, freeing the 6-foot Anderson up to attack the rim or rise up for a game-winning 3. Anderson meandered down the floor and pulled up from well beyond the left wing to bury a buzzer-beater — sending the Knights faithful into a frenzy.
“I didn’t even think about attacking, I just wanted to win the game so I let it fly. It turned out pretty good,” Anderson said. “I shot that shot a million times, I’ve been good under pressure.”
It was just another signature moment in a season chock-full of them for Anderson, who averaged 23.9 points, nine rebounds, three assists and two steals in a third consecutive Emerald Sound Conference MVP season. Anderson’s heroics also netted her the tournament’s MVP award despite coming up short in the state title game against Bellevue Christian.
For her regular season performance and accomplishments in the most significant moments of the postseason, Kaleo Anderson has been named The Herald’s 2024-25 Girls Basketball Player of the Year.
Anderson started her athletic journey as a young gymnast, but the sport of basketball always loomed close. Anderson’s grandfather played collegiate basketball in the family’s home state of Hawai’i while her two aunts also played basketball at the University of Montana and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, respectively.
As she grew to be too tall for gymnastics, Anderson’s parents started her on basketball in fourth grade. Her talent was clear almost immediately.
Being from the Mill Creek area, Anderson moved on to playing for local feeder programs like Jackson Wolfpack, starting on boys teams for a few seasons.
“That helped me grow physically for the game,” Anderson said, having drawn “too many and-ones to count” this season, according to Taylor.
When it came time to decide on a high school to attend, Anderson and her family searched the area extensively for a good fit. King’s stood out for its tight-knit culture and for the familiarity with Taylor — who had coached Anderson’s aunt in AAU.
“It was the community, everyone is so supportive here no matter what it is. Everyone has the same community goals… everyone wants what’s best for each other,” Anderson said.
As Anderson prepared to join the King’s community, Taylor got the sense she could be a key piece in the program immediately.
“After she visited and I heard she was going to enroll, I went to go watch a couple of her games just to see what she was all about because people had talked about her,” Taylor said. “I was like, wow, she is unreal.”
While many freshmen wait at least a year to play consistent varsity minutes, Anderson’s size and talents as a combo guard landed her a starting role immediately. She didn’t waste much time, assuming scoring responsibilities and playing heavy minutes for a Knights squad that finished fifth at state — earning her first Emerald Sound Conference MVP award in the process.
Socially, Anderson fit right in. Fellow freshmen Caitlin Cramer and Adeline Cox, who had each been at King’s well before ninth grade, thought Anderson “handled it well.”
For Anderson, the social transition of entering a school where everyone knew each other already was as “nerve-racking” as performing on the floor.
“I didn’t really want to overstep, but (Taylor) knew I was one of the best players on the court,” Anderson said. “He helped me grow closer with the girls.”
From there, Anderson and her teammates became close on and off the court — Cox pointed her out as one of the funnier players on the team.
Heading into her sophomore season, Taylor and the rest of the team got a new sense for Anderson’s work ethic.
Her perimeter shooting improved to the point where Taylor called her “knockdown,” a byproduct of Anderson training multiple times per day with her grandfather and playing year-round.
Cramer noted how apparent Anderson’s work ethic was during “Sisterhood Saturday” — a session in which the team would gather for individual development exercises and lifting.
“We always try to push each other during that, it shows she does so much more in her time away,” Cramer said. “She comes to school every morning, and she’s fresh off a workout. She’s an inspiration low-key.”
Anderson’s sophomore year netted her plenty of offers from Power-4 schools. While she isn’t making a decision on where to commit until July at the earliest, Taylor estimates her junior year is sure to leverage Anderson even more attention from top-flight collegiate programs.
“She’s a generational talent. I mean, by far she’s the best athlete I’ve coached,” Taylor said. “I’ve trained a lot of D-I kids. She just has a skillset that you just can’t duplicate.”
That skillset grew last offseason to include a more physical game. As the tallest player on King’s this season, Anderson has had to play any role necessary to win — including down low in the post. Anderson worked on finishing through contact this past offseason, and it showed with plenty of and-ones and tough drives to the rims this season.
That hard work, paired with being the go-to option for her entire time with King’s, paid off this season in a few ways.
Anderson broke the school’s scoring record for a single game against Meadowdale in December, posting 40 points in a narrow loss. She also took the school’s all-time career scoring title in a Jan. 31 win over Shorecrest before setting the King’s career rebounding mark during the district playoffs.
But one midseason moment stood out away from the game.
The team headed to Hawai’i for a winter break tournament in late December. The Knights were in the middle of a three-game losing streak when Anderson, Cramer and Cox were baptized by Taylor at Kualoa Ranch during sunrise one day.
“That was just like a huge tipping point for our team after the three losses,” Anderson said. “That was something no other team can say they shared together.”
“That gave us a new perspective on who we were really playing for,” Cramer said of that morning. “We bonded so much with the team and we were hungry to start winning again.”
The renewed hunger showed — the Knights rattled off an 8-3 record for the rest of the regular season.
Heading into the playoffs riding the momentum of the hot streak, the Knights looked unstoppable. King’s cruised through three games of Emerald Sound Conference Tournament action by a total margin of 122 points and clinched a four-seed in the state tournament.
After wins over No. 5 Annie Wright and No. 3 Zillah, it was time to face top-seeded Lynden Christian in the tournament’s penultimate game. The Lyncs had knocked King’s out of the quarterfinals the year prior and the Knights had failed to down their bitter rivals since 2015.
“One thing about being a King’s High School student — beating (Lynden Christian) is such a huge thing because that’s such a huge rivalry,” Cox said. “I know in my high school career my goal has always been to beat LC.”
When it came time to do just that, no one had any reservations about putting the ball in Anderson’s hands despite her being 1-for-4 thus far.
She slipped by a screen from teammate Molly Kyler and hit the game-winner in front of the King’s bench — only to be mobbed by her teammates almost immediately. For a season of emotional swings, Anderson’s heave from 25 feet summed it all up as briefly as possible. It took just a few seconds to turn a prospective offseason of agonizing over losing to a fated rival into pure jubilation to the point of tears.
While the Knights weren’t able to bring home the championship the next day, this story is still being written. King’s had just two seniors in Cat Ellard and Kylee Bengston on the roster this season. With a roster full of returners, the Knights figure to be right back in the mix in 2025.
Meanwhile, Anderson will continue to hone her game this off-season with her AAU squad, the Northwest Blazers. But when it’s all said and done, she just wants to leave a human impact.
“I know with all the records I can (make a difference), but leaving a mark socially… on the girls and hoping I can inspire them to be their best selves (is a goal),” Anderson said. “As a team, I’d say definitely make it back to the dome and hopefully get a gold ball.”
