TACOMA — This time of year, tears are common at the Tacoma Dome. It’s a natural reaction by teenagers who experience the end of a long journey.
Four girls teams were knocked out of the double-elimination Class 4A state basketball tournament Thursday. The most surprising team to exit on Day Two was definitely Jackson of Mill Creek.
Ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press poll, the Jackson Timberwolves rode a 21-game winning streak into the tourney but lost close games against Moses Lake and Skyview. Following Jackson’s season-ending defeat Thursday against Skyview, tears flowed heavily from the Timberwolves’ eyes. It was the final prep game for Jackson’s five seniors: Ashly Bruns, Kristi Kingma, Sara O’Neal, Ashley Todd and Natalie Harkness.
Kingma tried to control her emotions during an interview after the game.
“More than anything, our tears right now aren’t about the loss,” she said. “Our team is so close and we’re never going to get to play together again. The tears are more about that.”
Kingma, who set a 4A girls tourney single-game record with 43 points versus Skyview, started playing hoops with Bruns and Todd when she was age 5.
At Jackson, the trio all played major roles on the varsity team as freshmen. Since then, they helped lead the Timberwolves to all sorts of program firsts, including back-to-back District 1 championships and three-consecutive state-tourney appearances.
Before their arrival in the program, Jackson had never gone to state.
Last season Jackson placed eighth in 4A, garnering the team’s first top-eight trophy. This season they hoped for even more — much more, actually. It didn’t work out that way, but the overall experience has been life-changing.
“I’m not hanging my head,” said Kingma. “We had a great season and everyone played their heart out today. No one left anything on the floor.”
Added Kingma, “It’s been some of the best years of my life.”
Fifth-year Jackson coach Jeannie Thompson happily witnessed the evolution of Jackson’s Class of 2008 seniors. The players clearly had an unforgettable impact on Thompson.
“They’ve lived and breathed this program for four years,” Thompson said, “and they’ve brought us from obscurity to one of the top teams in the state.”
Another record-breaking day: For the third time in 17 days, Kingma set a new career high for points in a game. Her 43 points against Skyview Thursday were also the most ever scored by a girl in a 4A tourney contest, eclipsing the 40 tallied by Garfield’s Joyce Walker in 1980.
But Kingma’s performance wasn’t all about points. She also had six assists, more than any player from either team, and snared six rebounds, one less than Todd, her teammate. And Kingma, despite dealing with knee pain from a hyperextension she suffered last weekend, was on the court more than any of the other 14 Jackson and Skyview competitors who got in the game. Kingma played 31 minutes, 35 seconds — all but 25 seconds of the 32-minute loser-out game.
Strength in small numbers: The Lake Stevens girls basketball team’s student cheering section was significantly outnumbered by seemingly every other squad’s group Wednesday and Thursday. But it’s not always about who has more. It’s about what you do with what you’ve got.
The three dozen or so Lake Stevens students in the stands sure made a lot of noise. Pound for pound, they might have been louder than the average fan from any other school.
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