Point guard Maine exemplifies Freeman girls’ success

Freeman blue runs deep inside Alyssa Maine’s heart.

“I’ve been to every Freeman state tournament game since I was in kindergarten,” the senior point guard said. “I remember them all. And when I look around, I think we’ve all been playing together on the same team since we were in the seventh grade.

“We’ve all grown up together.”

When you’ve been steeped in school pride and your growth has been shaped by school tradition, it’s little wonder you grow to become a standard-bearer.

“Alyssa Maine is the complete Freeman Scottie basketball player,” assistant coach Kayla Floyd said. “The way she plays the game, the way she comes in and works hard every day, the way she doesn’t complain and keeps a positive attitude. You don’t get a player like that every year, but we’ve been lucky to have had a string of them over the past few years.”

Maine averages just less than 15 points per game heading into the state tournament, and she was named the Northeast A League most valuable player for her efforts.

Maine is one of two players on the Freeman varsity to have played for fourth-year head coach Ashlee Nimri and Floyd their entire careers. The past three seasons she’s been the team’s starting point guard.

Together they’ve helped the Scotties win the past two State 1A championship trophies along with a third-place trophy her freshman season. During her career on the varsity, Maine has helped the Scotties win 104 games while losing just four. Heading into Thursday’s opening round game with Granger, Freeman is 25-1, ranked No. 1 in the state and a favorite to win a third consecutive championship.

“We’re not thinking that far ahead, to be perfectly honest,” Maine said. “We’re trying to focus on one game at a time, and right now, we’re just thinking about Granger.

“Yes, we would like to win another state championship, but you can’t think that far ahead. We learned that lesson the hard way.”

The hard lesson came Feb. 8, when the Scotties lost to league rival Newport – a team they’d beaten twice during the league season.

“I think that was the best thing that could happen to these girls,” Nimri said. “I think it’s a good thing. They got to taste what it feels like to lose a game.”

And one taste was enough, Maine said.

“I think we all went back and took a hard look at where we were and what we were doing,” the team captain said. “I think we all got a good look at what we needed to do if we were going to keep going this season. I know it made me refocus myself.

“We’ve faced a bunch of loser-out games to get here and we know what it feels like to go into a game knowing that it’s all over if you don’t play your best. We saw how easily it could all slip away.”

As the team’s point guard, Maine is an extension of Nimri on the court.

“Ashlee and Alyssa have a great relationship – most of the time, especially during a game, one of them will start a sentence and the other one will finish it,” Floyd said. “They really understand each other and it’s fun to watch.”

It helps that both have grown up with Freeman basketball, Nimri said.

Nimri, then Ashlee Taylor, and Floyd were key players on the 2005 Scotties team that lost to Colfax in the championship game – a tournament Maine watched from the stands.

After a season at Spokane Falls CC, Nimri returned to her alma mater to be an assistant coach under Matt Gregg and asked her lifelong best friend, Floyd, to join her a year later. When Gregg left to become head women’s coach at Warner Pacific University in Portland, Taylor was promoted to head coach and she made Floyd her top assistant. Maine and fellow senior Danny Cossey were freshmen on that 2008-09 team.

“I think it really does help that we all grew up here and we all grew up playing Freeman basketball,” Floyd said. “We’re all on the same page, we all understand what it means to play here and what’s like to play here.”

“I’ve really enjoyed playing for Ashlee,” Maine said. “She’s always had so much confidence in us as a team and in me as a player. Even when I didn’t have all that much confidence in myself, she would look at me and say, ‘I believe in you.’ That means a lot – it really does.”