Team of destiny! Tualatin erases 19-point deficit, topples mighty Clackamas for Oregon 6A girls basketball title

Freshman point guard Love Lei Best scores a game-high 26 points as Timberwolves rally past Clackamas and its injured superstar, Jazzy Davidson

The Tualatin girls basketball team celebrates the first OSAA Class 6A state championship in program history. / Dan Brood

Consider the torch passed.

Tualatin’s plucky band of underclassmen came to the University of Portland’s Chiles Center on Saturday and did the unthinkable.

With freshman phenom Love Lei Best leading the way, the Timberwolves shocked nationally ranked Clackamas 63-58 in the championship game of the Oregon Class 6A girls basketball tournament, winning the program’s first title by toppling a team featuring Naismith Player of the Year finalist Jazzy Davidson and a bevy of Division I signees.

“It’s just so amazing,” said Best, who finished with a game-high 26 points. “I’m just so proud of all of us, the hard work we’ve been putting in all year. We just came together for this one.”

Love Lei Best scored a game-high 26 points for Tualatin. / René Ferrán

The Timberwolves (26-2) erased a 54-35 deficit with 2½ minutes remaining in the third period, closing the game on a 28-4 run that overwhelmed the Cavaliers (27-3) after Davidson, the three-time state player of the year, sustained an ankle injury in the final 30 seconds of the quarter.

“We just kept chipping away,” Best said. “We knew we could do it. We turned it up defensively, and then our offense started coming after that.”

Jordyn Smith, the lone senior on the Tualatin roster, grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds — seven on the offensive glass — had two steals in the fourth quarter and provided a gritty example while battling Davidson in the post.

“It really was all mental,” Smith said. “Knowing that we can hit the shots that we’re taking and have the heart to come back, and that we know we can win and believe we can win. And we did.”

Tualatin's Jordyn Smith / René Ferrán

Timberwolves coach Wes Pappas switched defenses after Davidson’s 3-pointer with 2:32 left in the third pushed Clackamas’ lead to 19, going back to a 1-3-1 trap that hadn’t proven effective in the first half.

This time, it worked to perfection. Tualatin forced seven turnovers in the final 10 minutes, converting them into 15 points.

Kendall Dawkins, another talented freshman, made two free throws with 4:01 to play to tie the score at 56-56. It took another couple of minutes before Ries Miadich (18 points) buried her fourth 3-pointer of the night from the corner in front of her bench, giving the Timberwolves their first lead at 59-56 with 1:52 remaining.

Finally, it was junior Alex Padilla who delivered the dagger, hitting a 10-footer from the left wing to beat the shot clock with 30.7 seconds left for a 63-56 lead.

“We just said, ‘Hey, you step up and do it harder and better,’ because we didn’t put the amount of pressure on them that we needed,” Pappas said. “We took away angles, we fought just a little bit more to dig out basketballs, and we started taking some the other way. And as we took balls the other way and turned them over, the confidence just swelled.”

There’s also no discounting the effect a hobbled Davidson had down the stretch. 

Jazzy Davidson had 17 points and 10 rebounds before suffering a left ankle injury late in the third quarter. / René Ferrán

She was clearly favoring her left ankle, and after returning to the game with 6:17 to play, she was a shell of the player who dominated the first three quarters, when she had 17 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots.

“It’s hard to play when you’re always thinking about something that’s hurting,” she said, fighting back tears. “I mean, I feel like we had the game won, but you know, things happen. Momentum shifts. The third quarter was our quarter, but the fourth quarter was theirs.”

Cavaliers coach Korey Landolt added, “We were just getting trapped, and we weren’t making very good decisions with the ball. Obviously, when Jazzy went down, that kind of took some wind out of the sails a little bit.

“I felt like we had gotten a few good looks, and we couldn’t put them down. Everything just started feeling really hard, and credit them and their defense. They definitely applied the pressure a lot more, and we obviously got thrown around a little bit, too. People were hitting the floor a lot, and that kind of saps your energy a bit.”

Still, for three quarters, it looked as if Clackamas, with its loaded roster of Division I talent, would add a second title to the one it claimed two years ago.

Sara Barhoum, a University of Oregon signee, made four 3-pointers to tie the 6A career record of 324 one day after breaking the single-season mark regardless of classification. She finished with a team-high 18 points.

Sara Barhoum tied the Class 6A career 3-pointers record with her fourth made 3 of Saturday's final. / René Ferrán

Instead, it was the Timberwolves who mobbed in celebration in front of their bench after the final horn sounded.

“We can celebrate here,” Best said after snipping her piece of the net. “But we know that there’s still more work to do next year.”

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