‘Feeling it’: Freeman’s Taylee Phelps big night latest step in basketball progeny’s journey

Junior Taylee Phelps has been a leader for the Freeman girls basketball team each of her three years on varsity. The daughter of two athletes and younger sister of two brothers – Paysen and Boen – who came through the Scotties program, she’s grown up with basketball in her blood.

But this season, Taylee is taking things to the extreme.

Exhibit A was Saturday, when the 5-foot-9 guard scored a career-high 46 points with 18 rebounds and five steals in a 59-41 nonleague win on the road over Warden.

“I was just feeling it,” she said. “I felt it early – I had confidence in warmups and it carried over into the game.

“I had a good night. My team allowed me to do it, so it was just fun to play. I felt like I was in a good flow.”

“She showed up ready to play,” first-year Scotties coach Garrett Sawyer said. “She got off the bus ready. She had great energy through warmups and preparing for the game. When the ball went up for the tip, she was off and running.”

But it wasn’t just the one matchup. For the season, Taylee is averaging 26.9 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 3.8 steals per game. Her terrific start is one reason the Scotties are 6-3 overall and 1-0 in the Northeast 2B so far.

Taylee couldn’t remember scoring 40 points in a game before, but did recall a game in eighth grade where she scored 30-plus in a game her team scored in the 40s.

Taylee’s mom, Tracy (Ford) Phelps, played basketball at Eastern Washington and her dad, Tobin, was a football player for the Eagles. Tracy stepped down as Freeman’s girls basketball coach this season to concentrate on being a fan – not only of Taylee, but also of brother Boen, who after a stellar high school career is playing football at Boise State.

Taylee has found the transition fairly easy.

“Obviously, having my mom as a coach is just a completely different dynamic. And I’ve had a bunch of different coaches in my life, and so not having my mom as a coach has not been insanely different for me,” she said. “She loves being just a fan this year. She’s my biggest supporter, always my No. 1 fan.”

Sawyer counts himself fortunate to have a player with Taylee’s experience and pedigree.

“She’s just a great leader,” he said. “She loves basketball, she loves to play. She’s a competitor. She just has a great mind for the game.”

He said the family connection helps.

“Her mom played, and her brothers both played here,” he said. “I’m sure they kind of pushed her a little bit when she was growing up as a young kid. But yeah, this is a very competitive family, for sure.”

Taylee appreciates the advantage she has growing up in a basketball family.

“I think it just gives me a lot of different views of basketball – it just gives me a better understanding of the game,” she said. “They’ll sit down and watch film with me, and so it just gives me a different sort of look on the court. And different plays, different things I can do with the ball, just multiple different viewpoints.”

She’s not the only current player on the Scotties with older siblings that have come through the programs.

“That’s something we all joke and laugh about,” she said. “It’s just Freeman is such a small school and so everybody knows everybody, and everybody has brothers, everybody has older siblings.”

It’s Taylee’s “all-in” attitude that is helping Sawyer in his first year in charge of the program.

“We’re trying to build a program, a girls basketball community here at Freeman,” he said. “That’s something I really stressed early on when I took this job with the girls and the families. I think what makes Taylee really special is she’s buying into that. She understands that for this team, this program to be successful, she’s got to step up as a leader … not only leading by action, but kind of being that voice of a leader too, and stepping up into that role.”