Hub Northwest rallies for 8th straight title, Millwood wins 6-foot and under in thriller | Hoopfest elite

The rain was starting to fall on Center Court, where Hub Northwest was on the ropes, an eighth straight Hoopfest 6-foot and over championship falling through players’ fingers on Sunday evening. Even players from 810, an upstart team with compelling length and shooting, were slipping and sliding.

It was bad news for Hub Northwest, whose only real offense was coming from Eastern Washington alum Parker Kelly, whose catch-and-shoot game is predicated on stopping and starting. The slippery conditions threw him off. 810 got a triple from Bobby Moorehead, who gave his group a 14-10 lead, only six points from knocking off the longtime champs.

Then Kelly noticed something: The court was starting to dry out. The rain had subsided a bit. He felt his shoes regain traction and his game unlocked.

“I could feel it on the 3-point line,” Kelly said.

Kelly proved it by knocking down the game-winner, a movement triple from the corner that he launched almost falling out of bounds. It swished through the net, good for the final 20-18 margin, extending his Hub Northwest team’s record-breaking streak to eight straight titles.

“It’s incredible,” Kelly said. “I think we can’t really comprehend how incredible it is, but I think when the run does end, you’ll be able to really appreciate it, and thankful that didn’t end this year. It’s just such a blessing to be able to play with this team.”

It’s another title for Kelly and his teammates, all ex-college hoopers, Mike Hart (Gonzaga), Robert Lippman (Northwest Nazarene) and Marc Axton (EWU), the latter of whom knocked down a key 2-pointer to kick -start his team’s run in the thick of the game.

But Kelly, who finished with 10 points, all on 2s, was at the heart of Hub Northwest’s comeback. One of his most important 2s came after a layup from Moorehead, who played at the University of Montana, attacked a closeout and slipped to the rim for an easy layup, pushing 810’s lead to 18-16 – a championship one basket away.

Kelly followed with a movement triple from the left wing. 810 couldn’t secure the victory on its next possession, so the ball went back to Hub Northwest, which found Kelly open in the corner falling away. When he launched it, it had the right angle. Did it have the distance?

As has been the case for now eight consecutive Hoopfests, Hub Northwest answered in the affirmative. Yes.

Davis cans triple to capture 6-foot and under championship for Millwood

Things were beginning to slip away for Millwood, the same way they always seemed to. After two straight summers of finishing second, guard Brandon Davis felt a similar fate simmering to the surface.

Millwood raced to a 7-1 lead on Be Ball For Life, a familiar opponent, which responded with four straight to get back in the game. Things swung back and forth from there until momentum fell to Be Ball For Life, which got five straight points from Shadle Park High alum Markieth Brown Jr., who used a driving layup to give his team a 19-18 lead.

With things teetering on the edge, Davis didn’t want to give Be Ball For Life a chance to win. He took a hand off, dribbled once to threaten a drive, then pulled up for two. Cash. He pumped his fist, his teammates mobbed him and the crowd went delirious.

“It means so much more than we can even explain,” said Davis, a Spokane native who played at Blue Mountain Community College and Alaska-Fairbanks. “People say, ‘Oh, Hoopfest, it’s just 3-on-3 basketball.’ But it’s like, I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, dreaming of winning the league, and we’ve been coming up short so many times. To have it go our way this time, it’s just crazy. I can’t explain it.”

It was a long time coming for Millwood, which also rosters Joshua Thomas, Alfie Miller and Jordan Gassman, whose team had made the finals in at least the previous five seasons. A summer ago, they watched Be Ball For Life big man Dominique McClendon sink a free throw to capture the championship.

“I’m not gonna touch a basketball for a while,” Davis said. “I’ll tell you that.”

Let It Flyy earns co-ed title

This summer’s co-ed championship went to Let It Flyy, home of Austin Bolt (won Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year honors in basketball and football in 2020 at Borah High in Boise), his brother Aidan, 2021 Lewis and Clark grad Macey Grant and her father, Jacob, a second-team All-GSL pick in 1991 at Ferris.

That group got it done by earning two victories over top challenger Baden, once in the semifinal and once in the title game. After falling to Let It Flyy in the semifinal, Baden topped social media influencer team Ethical Hoops to make the final. It’s the second straight runner-up finish for Baden.

Kronk wins fourth title after unceremonious finish to dunk contest

This summer’s dunk contest didn’t come to the kind of thrilling end that fans have come to expect in recent years.

The faces in the finals were familiar: Renton native Tyler Kronk, a three-time dunk contest champ looking to earn a fourth, squared off with Ben Ehlert, a Mt. Spokane grad who advanced to a dunk-off with Kronk.

But instead of one dunker ending things with a crowd-pleaser, they went back-and-forth with misses. Kronk threw one off the backboard to himself, jumped to grab the ball, put it between his legs, then went in for the slam – only for it to clank off the back iron. Ehlert followed with a similar attempt, but he lost control on the transfer between his legs.

Then things flipped back to Ehlert, who cradled the ball in his right hand, brought it down to his hip, then tried to windmill it in. No luck. Kronk answered by enlisting the help of a friend, who started by going between his legs, tossing it off the glass and making room for Kronk, who caught it midair, windmilled it around, then threw it down to the basket. Only it careened off the back rim.

In the end, Hoopfest officials needed to keep things rolling to make time for the ensuing championship games, so judges decided to award the title to Kronk, who captured his fourth straight title.

“It’s kind of just unlucky,” Kronk said. “I mean, they were fancy dunks, but I was trying to do the fancy ones. Maybe I could just seal the deal with a dunk or something like that.”

Note: Due to a decline in registered teams, there was no women’s elite bracket in 2026.