Capital brings energy on defense to claim 3A South Sound Conference girls basketball title

If the Capital High School girls basketball team knew it would record its lowest point total of the season in its biggest game – Friday night’s showdown at Gig Harbor – the Cougars might have been worried.

Instead, they also turned in their best defensive effort of the season, spoiling the Tides’ senior night with a 38-24 victory that left them 12-0 in league and two games ahead of both Gig Harbor and Yelm. Capital, ranked 11th in the WIAA Ratings Power Index, earned its first 3A South Sound Conference championship.

“Our team energy and effort was great,” said the Cougars’ first-year head coach Tiffany Twiddy. “It was Gig Harbor’s Senior Night. They definitely came ready to play. Our girls stepped up and met their energy.”

The Tides’ 24 points matched the Capital defense’s best effort of the season. They also held 1A Hoquiam to the same total in a 65-24 rout just before Christmas.

“It was a defensive battle,” Twiddy said of the win over Gig Harbor. “We did a really good job protecting the rim and forcing them to take lower percentage shots.”

Senior wing Nicole Lindblom again led Capital in scoring with 15 points, including a trio of long range three-point baskets. Junior guard Kendall Hooper added eight points while senior wing Kyra Ashton was in the thick of that vital defensive effort with five steals.

Because the school never received a trophy from the short-lived 3A Western Cascade Conference, there was some talk this season’s championship was the school’s first ever.

But several contemporaneous media references to the Cougars as the 2009-10 WCC champions, along with Capital’s #1 seed to that year’s West Central/Southwest Bi-District tournament, indicate this season’s is the second.

Guard Tosha Hollingsworth, twice the Olympian’s All-Area player of the year and First Team Associated Press All-State, and forward Aria Goodman led the ’09-’10 Cougars to an 8-1 league record, three games ahead of runner-up Yelm, and a 20-9 mark overall. Capital finished fifth in the 3A state tournament.

Neither played basketball in college, though Hollingsworth played for base teams in the Army and Goodman went on to become an all-conference volleyball player at Skidmore College in New York.

Though they hold the tie-breaker over Gig Harbor and Yelm – which plays both the Tides and Capital this week – the Cougars want to finish strong. They have a home game Tuesday night against Shelton and a game at Yelm in what is sure to be a playoff-like atmosphere on Friday.

Yelm squandered a 17-point second half lead in losing to Capital, 68-63, the first time around and will be playing its Senior Night game.

“The girls need to practice hard this week and not get complacent,” Twiddy said. “Against Shelton we need to take care of their shooters. Against Yelm we need to be aware of their guard play (Maddie Plevyak and Mikel Jones) and their big (Bayleigh Harder).”

A sweep of its games this week would put Capital (15-3 overall) in another exclusive club among local 3A and 4A schools that won championships with an undefeated mark in league play. Though Black Hills, W.F. West and River Ridge have all done it more than once in the 2A Evergreen Conference, only Olympia and Timberline have done so among the larger schools this century, during 20-0 regular seasons.

The 2001-02 Bears rolled to the 4A Narrows League title before losing three straight post-season games. The 2009-10 Blazers were ranked #3 in the AP poll and reached 3A state regionals, finishing 23-2, with both post-season losses by single digits to a Kennedy Catholic team coached by current Franklin Pierce boys coach John Barbee – who also coached two of Timberline’s best three players during AAU season.

“It would be amazing to be in that company,” said Twiddy. “But we’re taking it one game at a time.”

CAPITAL BOYS DROP BARN-BURNER TO GIG HARBOR, FALL TO THIRD

Meanwhile, No. 9 Gig Harbor and Capital played an equally pivotal game Friday night in West Olympia, with the opposite result.

Coming in a game back of Gig Harbor in the 3A SSC standings, Capital led several times down the stretch, but fell, 50-47, when the Tides’ Asher Raquiza broke the final tie with a three-point a minute from the end.

Gig Harbor is 10-2 in league. Capital falls to third at 8-4. Central Kitsap which beat Peninsula, 78-69, is now alone in second at 9-3.

Zach Toglia led the Tides with 13 points, while Raquiza totaled 12. Capital’s high-low senior post combination of 6-7 Brandin Riedel and 6-3 Jake Brandsma did most of the damaged for the Cougars.

Riedel finished with 23 points and Brandsma 12 as the pair connected several times on effective post-to-post passes.

“They had home crowd hype and Riedel had an amazing game,” Raquiza said. “Their point guard (Spencer Halstead) is a great distributor. They’re a well-rounded team, tough to beat.”

That hadn’t been the case during the first meeting at Gig Harbor, when the Tides won, 54-34. But the Cougars were ready on Friday.

“Capital played with a lot more grit this time,” said Gig Harbor coach Billy Landram. “They knocked us around. They came to play. They were very deliberate in what they were trying to do and it was effective.”

Gig Harbor has two games remaining in SSC play, at home against teams with losing records, Yelm and Peninsula, but the Tides won’t be overconfident heading into them: The “2” in their 10-2 league marks comes courtesy of back-to-back losses to the Tornados, 75-57, and Seahawks, 59-36, three weeks ago.

TIMBERLINE MAY BE LARGER THAN IT APPEARS IN LEADERS’ MIRRORS

With veteran coaches who’ve proven they know how to win, the start of both Timberline’s boys and girls seasons looked tragic.

Allen Thomas, who had guided his boys to a fourth-place finish at 3A state as recently as two years ago, watched the Blazers lose their first 10 games. Since, they have gone 4-4 and, with games against Peninsula and North Thurston remaining, still have an outside shot at claiming a spot into bi-districts.

Meanwhile, the girls had hired Tom Kelly, who’s won 2A state titles at River Ridge and W.F. West, to return the program to its winning ways of 2010-18 when the Blazers were bi-district perennials and made three state regional appearances.

The girls started out 1-8 before winning enough games to take the 3A SSC’s fifth and final playoff berth, if the Blazers (4-8 in league) can navigate a final week at Peninsula and home to North Thurston without losing ground to sixth-placed Shelton (3-9).

Timberline lost a high-scoring 80-73 game the first time to Peninsula and downed North Thurston, 62-41. Shelton travels to first-place Capital to meet Twiddy, the Highclimbers coach a year ago, before hosting last-place Central Kitsap.

GIRLS PIONEER HARDWOOD CLASSIC REMATCH MAY STILL BE HUGE

Tumwater girls host rival Black Hills in on Friday night. With the No. 6 T-Birds playing No. 7 W.F. West earlier in the week, the final game of the 2A Evergreen Conference season has the potential to be decisive.

If W.F. West reprises its 57-47 first round victory over the T-Birds – accomplished with Tumwater guard Isabella Lund out with the flu – the Bearcats would enter its Swamp Cup duel with Centralia on Friday 8-1 and in control. W.F. West downed the Tigers, 68-19, the first time around.

A Tumwater win would leave the T-Birds at 8-1 with No. 13 Black Hills still having a chance to tie for first place with a win over Tumwater, which won the first game, 59-36.

Black Hills boys enter the week with a two-game lead in the EvCo, but Friday’s game will still have the excitement the rivalry typically brings.

This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 6:00 AM.