LA CENTER — MacKenzie Ellertson calls basketball her fun sport. The King’s Way Christian senior didn’t play basketball last season to focus on her future in soccer, but the Washington State women’s soccer signee returned for senior year to experience moments like Thursday with her teammates.
“It’s so much fun,” she said.
And fun the Knights had in a 39-27 road victory at La Center, claiming the program’s first-ever win over a Wildcats program that’s dominated the league the past four seasons.
For Ellertson and the Knights, a shift in power might be changing in Trico girls basketball. La Center’s won outright or shared the Trico crown since the 2014-’15 season, and the Knights are 5-0 in league as Thursday ended the first half of league play.
“It’s all about putting a King’s Way stamp on this league,” Ellertson said. “We want to show that we are the best and we can compete with these teams and have upset games like this.”
They certainly put a stamp on the league in girls soccer, dominating the Trico League on its way to reaching its first-ever Class 1A state final.
Now, they want to echo that on the hardwood.
Ellertson posted 11 points, three assists and four steals of the team’s seven steals, proving instrumental all night defensively in what head coach Randy Graves called his team’s top defensive effort all year. They held La Center to without a second-quarter field goal and held the Wildcats scoreless the final 7:04 of the game.
The fourth quarter is when King’s Way found its offensive rhythm, utilizing its strength in the interior behind Lacey Zook. The senior came alive in the second half, scoring eight fourth-quarter points as part of a 12-0 scoring run for the Knights. Zook finished with 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting.
Taylor Stephens, La Center’s 6-foot-1 senior point guard, single-handedly kept the otherwise youthful Wildcats (5-9, 3-2) within striking distance. The third quarter is when she scored 13 straight La Center points, including three 3-pointers, to pull La Center within 25-24 entering the fourth.
But the Wildcats went cold in the final eight minutes. Mia Edwards’ 3 with 7:04 remaining tied the game 27-27, but that was the team’s final point.
For the game, La Center shot 10 of 36 from the field, including 6 of 27 from 3.
“We couldn’t hit shots,” said Stephens, who shared game-high honors with Zook with 17 points. “It’s frustrating. We played back and forth, back and forth the entire time and then it just stopped.”
La Center coach Herm VanWeerdhuizen said outside shooting has been his team’s Achilles heel in recent games. The Wildcats have now dropped two straight league games to fall to third place in the Trico. Before Tuesday’s loss at Stevenson, La Center had a 23-game league winning streak and hadn’t dropped two games in league play since going 10-4 in the Trico in 2013-’14.
For the Knights, they now hope to carry the momentum of Thursday into the remaining five league games and beyond.
“We all believe we can do it,” Ellertson said. “We mesh really well. This is our year. I felt it in soccer. And this year (in basketball), I feel it.”
