Taylor leads Scotties to first title-game trip

By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Freeman coach Matt Gregg stood outside the SunDome’s training-room enclosure, his arms crossed as he watched what seemed like half his team — which had just earned a berth in Saturday’s Class 1A girls basketball championship game — hobbling in that direction.

“Look at them,” Gregg said, shaking his head with genuine admiration. “It’s a M*A*S*H tent.”

There was senior Kaila Floyd, who had rolled her ankle and come back to score the biggest basket of the Scotties’ 53-43 victory over Liberty Bell, just a day after she was too sick to keep down anything but applesauce and Sprite.

There was Ashlee Taylor, who sometimes plays with tears rolling down her cheeks because of the pain from her shin splints, yet had managed to score a game-high 18 points on 8-for-12 shooting.

There was senior Melissa Baker, still limping from a hamstring pull that only managed to sideline her for a quarter before she just couldn’t stand to sit any longer.

“They’re all going to go home and take ice baths tonight,” Gregg sighed. “What can you do? Just look at them. They’re warriors. They showed their heart and battled the whole time.”

In so doing, the Scotties earned their first championship final and their fifth showdown of the season against Colfax, against whom Freeman is 4-0 this year. “We’ve won four times,” Gregg said, “but right now it’s zero-zero.”

The basket that all but vaulted the Scotties into the final was a putback by Floyd with 1:50 remaining and Freeman up by just two, 43-41. Liberty Bell’s outstanding senior point guard, Katie McCurry, had scored eight points and assisted twice to Kimber Taylor for four more during a 14-4 run that had given the Mountain Lions a 41-40 lead at 3:01. Taylor scored a go-ahead basket-and-a-free throw on a lob from Claire Moberg, their third such connection of the quarter.

As the game entered the final two minutes, with the shot clock winding down, Floyd drove the baseline and put up a shot that missed. Floyd — whose roster height of 5-foot-9 is probably two inches too generous — got the rebound. She shot again. And got the rebound.

And with her every jump for the ball, the shooting pangs in her ankle made her wince.

“I think the adrenaline kind of took away the pain,” she said. “I knew if I kept going for the rebound, it would at least take time off the clock.”

Instead, Floyd made the shot on her third try, got fouled and sank the ensuing free throw for a 46-41 lead. The five-point cushion completely changed the complexion of the game, making Liberty Bell rush its offense and hurry shots.

Freeman closed it out on back-to-back baskets by Jessie DePell, whose foul trouble had been limited her to 15 minutes of court time.

“So many of us are hurting,” Floyd said afterward, still unable to put much weight on that twisted ankle. “It says so much about our team.”

“It hurts a lot,” said Taylor, still red-eyed from those shin-splint tears. “But this has been our dream for four years.

“Whatever it takes.”