WIAA 3A girls basketball championship game: Brynn McGaughy, Central Valley find way to perfection

McGaughy a Washington Huskies signee, gives Bears lead for good in tight fourth quarter with Lakeside of Seattle

Eden Sander and Central Valley girls held off Lakeside of Seattle for WIAA Class 3A girls basketball title Saturday. / Photo by Steve Faber

TACOMA, Wash.- Sfill standing tall like the mountain-of-a-hooper she is, Brynn McGaughy was both joyous and relieved.

A small-town girl from Colfax, McGaughy made a last-minute move to Spokane to join a new team - Central Valley Bears.

Was it an ideal situation? Pribably not. But was it a perfect ending? Absolutely.

Locked in a rock fight with experienced Metro League program Lakeside of Seattle, McGaughy helped pull the Bears out of the second-half doldrums to finally put away the Lions, 39-34, to win the WIAA Class 3A basketball championship Saturday in the Tacoma Dome.

After Lakeside wiped out a 12-point deficit to take a second-half lead by holding the Bears without a field goal for nearly nine minutes, McGaughy had seen enough. She demanded to see the ball instead.

Her two free throws tied the game at 30-30 with 5:29 remaining. And on the Bears' next trip, she grabbed her own missed shot and laid if back in for the final points of her career to give the Bears the lead for good 39 second later.

"Definitely was urgency," McGaughy said.

As game as ninth grader Helena Christofilis was, Lakeside was living on borrowed time without its best player - Willa Chinn, who fouled out late in the third quarter.

The Lions were held scoreless for a span of 7:07 in the final quarter - with six turnovers.

"We had to lock in mentally," Central Valley guard Eden Sander said.

It was Sander's bank shot with 39 seconds remaining that sewed up the victory.

And now, the Bears can celebrate a rare feat - an undefeated championship season at 27-0.

"I mean, it's hard to do," McGaughy said. "We worked too hard not to win this game."

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