Andre Lawrence and Abrianna Lawrence: Father and daughter lead Jefferson to 6A girls basketball semifinals

He's Coach Lawrence during the game, but he's “a proud dad” the rest of the time

Jefferson coach Andre Lawrence and his daughter, senior point guard Abrianna, have helped turn the Democrats into a top contender at the OSAA Class 6A girls basketball state tournament. / René Ferrán

Andre Lawrence undergoes a transformation the second he walks through the gym door and heads to the court.

Before then, he is the proud father of Jefferson senior point guard Abrianna Lawrence, the recently minted PIL player of the year, admiring everything she does on the court.

But in that instant when he stepped on the Chiles Center court Wednesday, he turned into Coach Lawrence of the top seeds in the OSAA Class 6A girls basketball state tournament, and Abrianna becomes just another player — albeit a critical one to his team’s bid to win its first 6A title and first at any classification since 2010.

“100% coach. There ain’t no dad there,” he said. “Because she wouldn’t want me to be there.”

When the final horn sounded on the Democrats’ 62-58 quarterfinal victory over West Linn — their first win in the 6A championship bracket since 1995 — and he emerged from the locker room, he was back to being Dad again.

And Dad wore a big smile thinking back on his daughter’s performance, in which she and classmate Chauncey Andersen willed the Democrats (26-1) back from a 14-point deficit late in the first half to send them to a semifinal matchup Friday against nationally ranked Clackamas.

Abrianna scored 15 of her 22 points in the second half, including a two-minute stretch in which she scored 10 consecutive points for Jefferson — capping her run with a stepback 3-pointer from the right corner with 4:53 left to give her team a 55-48 lead.

Abrianna Lawrence brings the ball up court during Wednesday's quarterfinal. / René Ferrán

Andre acknowledged going to her during one timeout “as a dad/coach and said, ‘Hey, we’re not going to have any tears. So, we’ve gotta go out with no regrets. I need you to carry us to the end,’ and she put me on her back this time.”

It’s at those moments where Abrianna said the line between Dad and Coach can become blurred.

“It kind of feeds into each other, which is hard,” she said. “But I found a way to fight through it. Playing for my dad, it just feels like my father is teaching me, honestly. It doesn’t feel like a coach, really. It makes me feel a lot better and safer on the court.”

Andersen, a UC Santa Barbara signee who shared team-high scoring honors Wednesday with 22 points, sees that dynamic play out every day.

Jefferson seniors Chauncey Andersen and Abrianna Lawrence each scored 22 points in Wednesday's win. / René Ferrán

“They have this relationship where she’s able to be coached by him and not get her feelings hurt or anything like that, and I think that’s big,” Andersen said. “And another big thing is that Coach Dre allows the other coaches to talk to Abrianna a lot, just because hearing it from your dad is kind of hard. You’ve gotta drive home with him at night.

“But honestly, Abrianna is an amazing player, and Coach Dre is an amazing coach, and we just made it work.”

Andre was a standout player for the Democrats in the late 1990s, but he never pushed the sport on Abrianna, her younger sisters Mylee and Mackenzie — both sophomores who come off the bench this season — and older brother Andre Jr.

Instead, Abrianna took up soccer to start her athletic career, but it wasn’t long before the hoops bug bit her.

“We just happened to float to it,” she said. “We just went to basketball.”

When Abrianna joined her father at Jefferson in the fall of 2021, the program was at its nadir, going 2-22 in 2019-20 and 7-10 during the pandemic-shortened 2021 season.

Her freshman year, the Democrats improved to 17-9 and made the playoffs for the first time since 2011. They reached the second round again in 2023, and then last year made it back to the state tournament, winning 25 games — their most in a season since 2007-08 — but suffering a 53-47 quarterfinal loss to Willamette before bouncing back to place sixth.

The sting of that quarterfinal loss resonated among the seniors who comprise the heart of the Democrats as they stared at a 28-14 deficit late in the second quarter Wednesday.

“Definitely, the sophomores, the freshmen, they don’t really know the hurt it is to lose,” Abrianna said. “The seniors do. So, I knew I didn’t want to feel that again, so I knew I had to do something for us to win.”

Abrianna Lawrence and Jefferson will face Clackamas in Friday's semifinals. / René Ferrán

Her putback with 3:49 left in the third quarter capped a 19-5 run that tied the score at 33-33. Then, she stole an inbound pass, was fouled and made both free throws to give Jefferson its first lead since midway through the first quarter.

Later, she fed Andersen for a free-throw jumper at the third-quarter buzzer to push the lead to 43-40.

In the fourth quarter came the stretch when she put the Democrats squarely on her back. She pushed pace after a Lions basket and drove coast-to-coast for a layup, then came off a screen to bury a 3-pointer from the left wing.

A minute later, she worked her way down the lane for another layup, and she finished the display with the corner 3-pointer that brought a standing ovation from her teammates on the bench.

As Andre replayed the sequence in his mind in the Chiles Center hallway, his smile grew broader.

“I know how much work she put in,” he said. “I know how hard she wants it. I know what she does at home. I know the young lady she is.

“I’m a proud dad.”

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