State 4A/3A girls: Mead, Gonzaga Prep both win semifinals to put Greater Spokane League in 4A, 3A title games

TACOMA – If someone told you Greater Spokane League Most Valuable Player Teryn Gardner would match her lowest point total of the season in the State 3A semifinal, you would probably think Mead would lose.

You would be wrong.

Gardner went 3 for 10 from the field and scored a modest 13 points to tie her season low, but she hit 5 of 6 at the free-throw line in the last 60 seconds, sophomore Gracie Wenkheimer had 15 points – all on 3-pointers – and the top-seeded Panthers (26-1) outlasted the Snohomish Panthers (19-7) 56-50.

Combined with Gonzaga Prep’s win over Davis in a 4A semifinal, the two are the 30th and 31st GSL girls team in 47 years of high school hoops to play for a 4A or 3A state championship – with 18 titles. Mead’s last title came in 2013 in the 4A classification.

“I love that,” Mead coach Quantae Anderson said. “I love that for Gonzaga Prep. I love that for us. I love that for the GSL, and I love that for the city of Spokane. And you know, we’re not finished yet.”

After consecutive seasons of faltering in the semifinals, Mead – and Gardner – reached the right to play for the gold ball against Garfield on Saturday at 9 p.m.

“Finally made it, you know,” Gardner said, “It’s been long enough and honestly, this is the perfect time and it really is with this team, with these people, with these fans. It’s just the perfect time, perfect season to do it and to finish the job.”

Gardner went scoreless in the first half but to hear Anderson tell it, that was partly by design.

“We kind of went thinking that was gonna happen, because in previous games that we’ve watched (Snohomish), they’ve played some junk defenses. They did a box-and-one yesterday. On Saturday they did a triangle-and-two,” he said. “We prepared for that, and we just told (Gardner) today to be patient and understand that the game’s gonna come to you in that second half.”

“It’s a big, big trust factor,” Gardner said. “I trust all my teammates, and (Snohomish’s) tactic was to take me out of the game. But taking me out, yeah, it’ll affect us, but we have so many other scorers and so many and many other people that we can rely on.”

Sophomores Reece Frederick and Wenkheimer hit early 3-pointers, Mead’s defense allowed just two baskets and the Panthers led 11-6 after one quarter.

“Gracie was so big for us today – and all season,” Anderson said. “She came up in clutch moments in that first half when we needed buckets. And after she missed her first one, I just told her you have to be aggressive.”

Wenkheimer hit two more to push the lead to 10 with 2:36 left in the half. She hit another later in the period and, despite Gardner going scoreless in the half, Mead led 29-14 at halftime.

Gardner’s first bucket came with 3:40 left in the third quarter and Mead up by 13. Then she sliced down the lane for another layin on the next possession.

But Gardner and Catherine Greene got tied up on a rebound and the Mead guard hit the back of her head hard on the floor and came out for the rest of the quarter. The Panthers led 39-27 entering the fourth.

Addyson Gallatin’s first basket, a 3, cut the Snohomish deficit to seven early in the fourth quarter. But Frederick responded with her third 3 to make it 42-32 with 6:06 to go.

Snohomish guard Kendall Hammer hit back-to-back 3s then Lizzie Allyn hit one to get it to five. But Wenkheimer hit her fifth 3 the next time down to put it back to nine with 2:35 left.

Gardner sliced to the basket to make it a seven-point game, then grabbed a steal at the other end with 45 seconds to go. She made 5 of 6 at the line as Snohomish was forced to foul.

“We know that she’s gonna knock down free throws,” Anderson said, “and so we found a way to get her the ball and she knocked them down.”

Underdog Bullpups seize opportunity

For the eighth-seeded Gonzaga Prep Bullpups, their 4A semifinal against fifth-seeded Davis (Yakima) was a game of runs.

And the Bullpups made their final run at the perfect time.

Starting in the third quarter and lasting over 6 minutes into the fourth quarter, G-Prep erased used 19-2 run to beat Davis 67-60 and send the Bullpups (21-6) to the State 4A championship game for the first time since winning back-to back titles in 2014 and 2015.

“Momentum just finally shifted our way,” G-Prep head coach Geoff Arte said. “A lot of it was we started making some shots, which always helps, makes me look better. I think it kind of goes to our resilience. We didn’t give up when we got down 10. We just kept kind of chipping away.

“We had some big buckets at the end of the third quarter to get it to six. In the huddle, we could sense that we could get this back. If it had stayed 10, I don’t know.”

The Pirates (20-5) built that 10-point lead with a 16-0 run in the third quarter. Momentum and control were definitely on the Davis side, but the Bullpups stayed poised.

“We were close enough that we believed we could still win,” Arte said. “I think it’s a credit to our kids to always keep believing.”

Perhaps part of the reason the Bullpups continued to believe was that they have freshman Aylah Cornwall on their side. Cornwall scored a game-high 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead Gonzaga Prep. She also made several key free throws late in the fourth quarter that helped the Bullpups hang on for the win.

Cornwall said the comeback win was just part of the Bullpups’ identity.

“We knew we had to bring the energy,” Cornwall said. “We wanted this win. We were going to push the ball. We were going to push ourselves and each other. Physically and mentally, we weren’t going to give up. We were going to try our hardest and not leave anything on the court.”

G-Prep had to leave everything on the floor to overcome a scrappy Davis team that likes to turn up the defensive pressure on its opponents.

“That team is really good,” Arte said. “They really put some pressure on you in a lot of spots – a lot of skilled kids. I thought we buckled down when we needed to.”

The Pirates weren’t helped by the fact that senior Esmeralda Gallindo, freshman Cheyenne Hull and freshman Isa Garcia all were in foul trouble. Gallindo and Hull each picked up two early fouls and played sparingly in the first half. By game’s end, Gallindo and Garcia both had fouled out and Davis coach Akil White subbed Hull in and out throughout the fourth quarter to try and keep her from the same fate as Gallindo and White.

“When you’re two best players don’t get to play together for more than maybe 11 minutes, that tends to happen,” White said of the Bullpups’ comeback in the fourth quarter. “The time they got to play together was in the third quarter and the beginning of the first quarter and those are when we went on runs. … That game is a different game if Cheyenne isn’t in foul trouble. I’ll tell you that right now.”

Despite the foul trouble, Gallindo still led the Pirates with 23 points.

G-Prep will play top-seeded Camas at 5 p.m. in Saturday’s championship game. Davis will face fourth-seeded Sumner in the game for third and fifth places at 11:15 a.m.

– Freelance writer Aaron Lommers contributed to this report