Kamiakin Dominates, Far And Away Low-Scoring Title Affair As Mead, Clinesmith Struggle

When the shots aren’t falling from inside the paint, shoot from the perimeter.

Seems a little backward, but don’t tell that to Kamiakin’s Carmel Lampson or her coach Kevin Estes.

Lampson, a junior guard, followed her coach’s advice and drained four 3-pointers - two from NBA 3-point land - to lead the Kamiakin past Mead 30-27 in the championship of the Lamb Weston Eastern AAA girls basketball tournament Saturday at Richland High School.

Both teams already were headed for the Kingdome as a result of Class AAA state qualifying wins Friday night and will enter with identical 22-3 records.

“She can hit that,” Estes said, after his team earned the higher seed at state. “I told her at the break (after the first quarter) to step out. I told her, ‘you can make it.”’

Lampson responded with a game-high 14 points, good for nearly half of her team’s total.

The Braves’ Kristin Willis wasn’t nearly as productive as Lampson, offensively, but was able to hold Mead’s Stacy Clinesmith to three points in the first half and 12 for the game on 4-of-18 shooting. Clinesmith scored 49 points in her first two tournament games.

Clinesmith was not the only one who struggled offensively.

“Last night (56-47 win over Shadle Park) we played a hearts out,” Clinesmith said. “Today was not that big of a game. If we had to lose one, that was it.”

The game broke the tournament record for lowest winning score (30) and lowest total game score (57).

Kamiakin 30, Mead 27

Kamiakin 2 12 6 10 - 30 Mead 2 7 12 6 - 27

KAMIAKIN Lorenz 0 0-0 0, Keats 1 0-0 2, Erikson 0 1-4 1, Lampson 5 0-0 14, Willis 1 0-0 2, Williams 0 1-2 1, Cox 3 0-0 6, Shaw 2 0-0 4. Totals - 12 2-6 30. MEAD Beatty 0 0-0 0, C. Clark 1 0-0 2, Cory 0 0-1 0, Turner 0 0-0 0, Clinesmith 4 3-4 12, Benad 0 1-2 1, Roberts 0 0-0 0, J. Clark 3 0-0 6, Bennett 2 2-4 6. Totals 10 6-11 27. 3-pointers - Lampson 4, Clinesmith. Total fouls - K 14, M 10. Fouled out - none.