ROCHESTER – As the Elma girls basketball team posed with the 1A District 4 championship trophy, there were no tears of joy or giddy celebrations.
The Eagles carried themselves like that’s where they belonged.
And after beating La Center 66-40 in the championship game Wednesday at Rochester High, who would argue otherwise?
Led by Jalyn Sackrider’s 31 points, an Elma team with eight seniors controlled all facets of the game.
In doing so, Elma modeled what a young La Center team, where four of its top five scorers are underclassmen, hopes to eventually become.
“They’re all seniors, Elma was,” La Center coach Herm VanWeerdhuisen said. “They’ve been here, we haven’t. That showed tonight.”
Elma (16-6) clinched a berth in the regional round of the state tournament. La Center (14-8) will face Montesano on Friday in Chehalis for the district’s final state berth.
La Center beat Montesano 64-53 on Feb. 15 in the district tournament. The Wildcats will take lessons from that game and Wednesday’s loss into Friday’s do-or-die game.
“What we’ll learn from this is that we need to play better as a team,” said sophomore Kylee Stephens, who scored a team-high 12 points. “Against Montesano, we need to come out mentally prepared and know what’s going to happen. We played them before, so we should be able to keep up.”
La Center went 3-6 against tough non-league competition before winning the Trico League title. Wednesday’s game was a reminder that the postseason brings increased intensity.
“In the preseason, they were all hard games,” Stephens said. “It was kind of a punch in the face. Now it’s almost like it’s back to the preseason, where they’re all hard games.”
Elma took control with a 13-0 run during the second quarter. La Center went just 4 for 13 from the field in that quarter, which ended with Elma ahead 32-18.
La Center couldn’t string together any scoring runs in the second half, when Elma maintained a lead near 20 points the entire way.
“If you don’t make shots from the outside when you’re playing a bigger team, it’s going to be a long night,” VanWeerdhuisen said.
Experienced teams know how to quickly move on from bad games. La Center has a chance Friday to show it has learned that lesson.
“I told them, we’ve got to forget this one right now,” VanWeerdhuisen said. “We’ve got to come ready to practice tomorrow and Friday we’ll see what happens.”
ELMA 66, LA CENTER 40
LA CENTER (14-8) – Mya Ecklund 2, Aaliyah Rivers 0, Gianna D’Emilio 4, Emma Seter 2, Natasha Lewis 5, Kylie Ballard 0, Lauren Fox 3, Alyse Webberley 8, Mia Edwards 4, Kylie Stephens 12, Malyah Cooley 0. Totals 15 (3) 7-11 40.
ELMA (16-6) – Jalyn Sackrider 31, Jillian Bieker 11, Janessa Sample 2, Kaelyn Burgher 3, Ella Moore 0, Kali Rambo 11, Quin Mikel 8, Baylee Crisp 0. Totals 25 (4) 12-21 66.
La Center 9 9 7 15—40
Elma 14 18 17 19—66
