BRUSH PRAIRIE — As Prairie girls basketball seniors Dayna Vera and Alli Corral celebrate baskets and victories together, smiles on their faces and high-fives aplenty, it’s hard to picture just how rocky their relationship started.
The duo has helped Prairie to a 23rd consecutive league championship, a 13-7 record and a top seed entering Friday’s 3A bi-district quarterfinal game.
Things weren’t always so seamless for the teammates/housemates.
Vera moved into the same room as Corral before seventh grade, transitioning from sunny Southern California to dreary Southwest Washington.
In hopes of a brighter future, Vera transplanted to live with her grandparents, Prairie girls basketball coach Hala Corral and her husband Art, before seventh grade. Vera is Art’s granddaughter from a previous marriage. Alli Corral is technically Vera’s aunt, although they consider each other sisters.
“The school I was going to wasn’t very good and they didn’t want me to hang around the wrong people and start going downhill,” Vera explained.
But spending nearly all your time with one person you hardly know as a middle-school student in a transitional time was bound to cause conflict.
“The first two weeks, I don’t think I ever fought with someone more in my entire life,” Alli Corral said. “We shared a bedroom; we shared the same friends; we shared the exact same classes. It was like 24/7 together.”
Plus, there’s two rules in a Corral household: play basketball and get good grades.
And Vera didn’t know how to shoot a basketball. The sport was foreign to her.
“I was awful and I didn’t know what I was doing, so it was really frustrating,” Vera said.
But she kept tagging along to Alli Corral’s practices. Vera’s elder by eight months — who had held a basketball in her hands since she was an infant — Alli became a coach of sorts.
“At first, it was really hard because it’s something I’ve been doing my entire life and watching someone else who’s never done it was insane,” Alli Corral said.
The two each got their own room eventually, and as they spent more time together, they grew closer. Alli Corral, once the baby of the family, grew into a new role.
“As they got closer, Alli was like her protector,” Hala Corral said.
Vera played on a middle-school team with many of the same girls who compose this year’s Prairie varsity team. But it wasn’t until high school when things finally started to click on the court for Vera, she said.
While this is Vera’s third season on the varsity roster, it’s the first she has co-starred with Alli Corral, a four-year starter and key piece of last year’s 3A State championship team. Corral averages 8.2 points per game for the Falcons, who host Peninsula or Yelm in a winner-to-state game Friday.
Vera entered the year as a defensive specialist, but has recently found a rhythm offensively, averaging eight points per game.
“She’s so quick and really reads the court well,” Hala Corral said. “For only playing for six years, she has really good instincts on the court.”
Nobody is happier to see Vera’s success than Alli Corral.
“When (Dayna) has a breakout game, sometimes it’s Alli who is more excited,” Hala Corral said. “It’s like her little sister is doing really well.”
That family aspect — Alli’s older sister Ashley Corral is also an assistant on the team — has been key to Prairie’s success this season. Rather than being able to rely on Division I talent, they’ve had to lean on chemistry. Vera and Alli Corral are leading the way.
“Now we’re like inseparable,” Alli Corral said.
Added Vera: “I consider her my sister and my best friend.”
