Hoopfest elite: Repeat champions abound, headlined by Hub Northwest’s seventh straight title

With his orthopedist appointment looming on Friday, Parker Kelly sent a message to his Hub Northwest teammates.

“Hey, if there’s damage, I can’t play,” Kelly wrote to Mike Hart, Mark Axton and Robert Lippman, who would be trying to extend their Hoopfest record and win a seventh straight championship in the 6-foot -and -over division. “You guys can go with three.”

A former Gonzaga Prep and Eastern Washington player, Kelly was concerned about what the X-ray would reveal on his shoulder, which began bugging him earlier in the week. Even Hart, a former Gonzaga standout, was nursing a bit of a back injury. As the group gunned for an even more unbreakable Hoopfest record, for the first time in a while, players felt a sense of anxiety around their availabilities.

But for Kelly and Hub Northwest, that’s what made the team’s 6-foot -and -over division championship win over Jet Juice on Sunday evening even more meaningful. Battling back from what was once a three-point deficit, Hub Northwest rallied and took a late lead, clinching the title on a free throw from Kelly for the final margin at center court.

Last summer, Hub Northwest set a record with a sixth straight title. This year, the group built on that and extended it to seven, surviving a scare from an upstart Jet Juice team. As Hub Northwest’s roster ages, Kelly said, the magnitude of the accomplishments really sets in.

“It’s just the fact that we love to compete. We love to compete for each other,” Kelly said, explaining what keeps him and his teammates coming back every year. “Plus, we love this event so much and what it does for the city. We wanna keep playing as long as we can, to see how many we can rack up. There’ll be a day where we can’t do this.”

“This is the greatest event,” Hart added. “It’s in Spokane. We love basketball, and we’re competitive guys. We love that this new team, this Jet Juice team, came in, and they were great. They were awesome. We just like competing and playing against the best. Every time a new team comes, it’s really good, and it gives us a challenge. That’s what we live for.”

As he was beginning to make another comment, a funny thing happened on the court. A few feet away, Axton – who connected on a key 3-pointer late in the game – got hit by a stray basketball. That was courtesy of his son, who was shooting around.

When he saw who the ball had been shot by, Hart laughed. The moment helped him put its meaning in perspective: the way Hoopfest brings players together, both with themselves and with their families.

“For us, this turns into Christmas parties with our families and things like that,” Hart said, “because we played together so long in so many years. We’ve developed some awesome relationships with this as the linchpin.”

BE BALL FOR LIFE repeats as 6-foot -and -under champs

At the free -throw line with a chance to win a second straight 6-foot -and -under division title, Dominique McClendon couldn’t shake one thought.

The sun is in my eyes.

It was about 5 p.m., and the sun was indeed flaring directly through the backboard and into the eyes of McClendon, a newcomer to the team, which also includes returner Maurice Thomas and fellow newcomers Markieth Brown and Michael Hannan, both Spokane natives.

But BE BALL FOR LIFE needed only one point to defeat Millwood and secure the title. McClendon responded to his first miss with a make on the second attempt, earning 6-foot -and -under MVP honors as his new club secured the championship.

“For me, this is it,” said McClendon, who last summer played on BBFORLIFE AMOTKAN, which did not return for this year’s event. “This is the last basketball – ain’t no basketball seasons, or none of that. We lost it last year, so I’m like, 364 days till the next one. So since we won this one, 364 days – I ain’t gonna be mad this time. I can enjoy the summer.”

On his group’s run to the title, McClendon played an invaluable role, using his imposing size to post up defenders on the block and bury them under the basket for layups. He usually converted those chances into easy bank shots, but when he couldn’t, he sprayed it out to shooters on the wings, like Brown.

A Shadle Park grad who went on to play at Everett Community College earlier in life, Brown himself proved vital to his team’s success, parlaying his sharp handle and effective shot into points by the bushel.

“I’m not gonna lie, it means a lot,” said Brown, who played his final year of college at Montana Tech in 2020-21. “This is my third year planning in 6-foot and under elite. I kinda underestimated it a little bit, but it’s really scrappy. Every time you get here, it’s worth it, you know? I hadn’t won it yet, so when I did, it’s worth it. I worked really hard outside of Hoopfest, so it actually felt really, really good.”

Empire Fitness repeats as women’s champions

Nothing changed on the women’s elite side, either. Empire Fitness rolled to a second straight championship, going 4-0 on the weekend to hand Jazmine Redmon, Jessie Loera, Shannon Reader and Ciara Andrews repeat champion honors.

Redmon, Loera and Reader all played at Gonzaga, while Andrews plied her trade at Saint Joseph’s. Redmon hails from Spokane, Loera from Moses Lake and Reader from Lake Oswego, Oregon.

In co-ed division, Ballin’ Like Magic makes first new champion

There was one new champion in this year’s Hoopfest, which belonged to co-ed squad Ballin’ Like Magic, whose team rostered Macey Grant, Dedi Seme, Desmond Judd and Dami Ashaye – the last of whom hit the clinching free throw to beat Baden Elite in a 20-18 victory.

Grant graduated from Lewis and Clark High in 2021, the Boise native Seme played at Blue Mountain Community College, Judd competed at La Salle High in Union Gap and Ashaye is a Boise-area native who went on to play lacrosse at nearby College of Idaho.