WEST LINN – A darkhorse contender appears to be emerging in 6A girls basketball.
West Linn, which has spent the season on the fringe of the top 10 in the OSAAtoday 6A coaches poll, is riding a giant wave of momentum, adding to it Tuesday night with a 72-32 home win over Sheldon in the first round of the state playoffs.
Friday, senior-less West Linn made a statement by beating second-ranked Tualatin 64-57, a game in which it led by 21 points. Now, the ninth-seeded Lions (19-7) are believing they can make a deep run.
“We're way better now,” coach Brooke Cates said of how her team has improved in the past two months. “We are young, so we knew all along it was going to take a while for us to gel and learn our systems and learn to play with each other. We told them from the beginning, we're aiming for the end of February, into March, to peak at the right time.”
West Linn, No. 8 in the final OSAAtoday 6A coaches poll, extended its winning streak to seven games by dominating Sheldon (12-13). Junior point guard Reese Jordan, the Three Rivers League player of the year, scored 16 of her game-high 18 points in the first half and had six assists and five steals. Sophomore guard Kaylor Buse, also a TRL first-team pick, scored 14 of her 16 points before intermission and had eight assists and six steals.
Sophomore Piper Beall scored 10 points and junior Ayla Arnold and freshman Brielle Balensifer added nine points each. The Lions made nine three-pointers, three by Balensifer.
The Lions will play at No. 8 seed Benson (21-4) on Friday for a berth in the eight-team state tournament. West Linn, which lost in the round of 16 the last two years, is looking to reach the Chiles Center for the first time since 2022.
“Knowing we've lost in the second round my freshman and sophomore years, I really want it,” Jordan said. “We're all going to fight really hard for it. It's going to be a really tough game. They're really tough, and it's going to be on their home court. But I think we're going to be ready and get the 'dub.'”
The Lions – who start three juniors, one sophomore and one freshman – believe they are much better prepared for the high-stakes game than they were a year ago.
“We have a whole year of experience under our belt,” Buse said. “We're still super young. I think last year also kind of put a fire under us. We know what not to do now.”
Cates said losing at Southridge 60-55 in the round of 16 last year was “an incredibly hard loss.”
“Any time you lose one step away from the Chiles Center, that's something you don't forget,” Cates said. “I think these girls went to work after that. All they've done is work for what's coming up on Friday. Our goal has been to get to the Chiles Center, and then do something when we get there.”
The win over No. 3 seed Tualatin (22-2) – their first victory over a team currently ranked in the top 10 of the coaches poll – allowed the Lions to share the Three Rivers title with the Timberwolves. It was a reversal from the first round of league play, when they lost at Tualatin 55-30.
“We prepared the whole three weeks after we played them,” Jordan said. “We all played our roles really well. We all had so much confidence, and knocked down every shot. It boosted all of our confidence a bunch. It built especially the younger kids' confidence.”
Tualatin's only other loss this season is 55-53 to Clackamas, which finished a unanimous No. 1 in the coaches poll.
“Mentally it showed us that if we compete, and we stay together, we can end up playing with any team we come up against,” Buse said. “I think we kind of already believed that we could, but we didn't really see it in action a lot. Just putting action to our beliefs, it really meant a lot.”
West Linn might have fallen off the radar of 6A contenders by early January, when it had a 6-6 record. But those teams can't afford to overlook the Lions now.
“I feel like teams look at us, and we're pretty short, not that tall,” Jordan said. “But on the court, we're super aggressive, and we want to win.”
jerryu@osaa.org
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