King's players celebrate their first Class 2A state basketball title with sparkling apple juice in the locker room after beating Chewelah 59-55 Saturday night in the SunDome.   JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic View all photos for this story.

Knights rally back to beat Chewelah, 59-55

By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

It was the night before the championship game, and the best player on the best team in the Class 2A girls ranks was trying to explain — with the help of a Bible verse — just why one player can’t win by herself.

“There’s a verse, I think it’s in Jeremiah,” Sara Mosiman said. “I’m not sure exactly how it goes, but basically it’s saying that all the body parts are needed for the body to work. Like it takes all of the players on a team for the team to win.”

Twenty-four hours later, her team — the King’s Knights — would demonstrate exactly that. Mosiman, who would be unanimously voted the tournament’s most valuable player that night, was saddled with foul troubles almost from the opening tip. She was on the bench for half the game and, when on the court, she played as if wading through broken glass.

So it was left to the other pieces of the Knights’ collective body to keep their dream alive against a Chewelah team that was as quick and explosive as were the Knights themselves.

With Danielle Clauson playing the game of her life and Caitlyn Faidley sinking a pair of critical, fourth-quarter 3-pointers, King’s pulled out a 59-55 victory over the Cougars.

“I’d say we’re all very even, except for Mo (Mosiman),” said Clauson, whose 22-point, six-rebound, three-steal performance made her the game’s dominant player. “But I knew when she went out, one of us was going to have to step up, and I just tried to do everything I could.”

Certainly, a lot was needed. Over the first 4:07, King’s (26-1) missed 11 straight shots, Mosiman picked up two quick fouls — a third would come two minutes later — and Chewelah guards Nikki Nelson and Jochelle Schatz triggered a 9-0 Chewelah run.

Nelson and Schatz, who would finish with 14 and 16 points, respectively, combined for 17 first-half points and kept the Cougars in front for all but 42 seconds of the first half. But Clauson answered with 12 first-half points, including back-to-back 15-footers late in the half, which ended in a 26-26 tie.

“She was so big tonight,” Mosiman said of Clauson. “She was the mature one. She just kept lifting us up, keeping us going. She had so much confidence.”

Still, though, as they had in the first half, the Cougars (21-5) always seemed to have a little edge. A steal and a driving layup by Nelson here, a putback by Sarah Scates there, a two-point lead, up to four there. After a pair of Schatz free throws put the Cougars up 45-41 with 6:53 remaining, though, Faidley would become the Knights’ key body part.

She hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to pull King’s within one, a shot that clearly lifted the Knights’ energy level. Then, with 2:37 left, she hit another one that clearly deflated the Cougars.

“That was huge,” Clauson said of Faidley’s second 3-pointer, which put King’s up 53-51 — actually equalling their largest lead of the game. “That was definitely the turning point in the game.”

At 54-53, Mosiman — playing tentatively to avoid picking up a fifth foul — scored a driving basket in transition for a three-point lead with 1:10 remaining. Then, 35 seconds later, she hit two free throws that all but clinched the victory.

“When Mo doesn’t have her usual big game, it means other people have to step up,” King’s coach Eric Rasmussen said. “Danielle Clauson came up big when we needed her to, and Hayley (Zevenbergen) gave her heart and soul on the defensive end.”

So, too, did the Cougars, who would have been among the few in the SunDome who really thought they could derail the powerful Knights.

“They did our game plan. The kids executed everything I asked them to do. They left their heart and soul on that court,” sighed Chewelah coach Kevin Mulligan. “It’s a hard loss, but we did our very best, and that’s all we can ask.

“It’s just like life. A break here or a break there can make the difference.”