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Prep notebook: Evergreen celebrates 1995 boys basketball state championship team

Look at final week of basketball regular season

By Meg Wochnick, Columbian staff reporter, and
Tim Martinez, Columbian Assistant Sports Editor
Published: February 3, 2025, 7:05pm
2 Photos
Members of the 1995 Evergreen High School boys basketball team and coach John Triplett, third from left, gather for a celebration of the team’s state championship on Friday at Evergreen High School.
Members of the 1995 Evergreen High School boys basketball team and coach John Triplett, third from left, gather for a celebration of the team’s state championship on Friday at Evergreen High School. (Photos by Meg Wochnick/The Columbian) Photo Gallery

On a night the Evergreen Plainsmen celebrated its best team in program history, it got its biggest win of the season to keep its postseason hopes alive with two 3A Greater St. Helens League games remaining.

Friday, Evergreen topped 3A GSHL-leader Mountain View, 58-56, behind Dez Daniel’s 19 points — two shy of reaching 1,000 for his career. At halftime, the program welcomed its 1995 undefeated state championship team with an extended halftime ceremony.

That year, the Plainsmen went 26-0 and topped Sammamish in overtime at Seattle’s Kingdome for the Class AAA title, the state’s largest classification at the time. The team led the state in scoring at 75 points per game, and also won the academic state championship. Only a season earlier in 1994, Evergreen made its first-ever state tournament appearance.

Most players and coaches from the championship team attended Friday’s event. Retired head coach John Triplett, now living in Arizona, addressed the crowd at halftime.

“I’m just proud to be part of what they were doing,” he said, “and more importantly, we represented Evergreen High School and the surrounding community. … We were proud to represent EHS and proud to be part of anything that had to do with Evergreen High School.”

The ceremony concluded by unveiling a championship banner spearheaded by current Evergreen coach Brett Henry. Evergreen’s Fieldhouse recognizes all team and individual state champions in the school’s history in the gymnasium’s northwest corner, but Henry wanted to better showcase the 1995 team’s accomplishment.

“I saw this as a perfect opportunity to fix that,” Henry said, “and make sure that it is on full display. The idea is that we want to honor every state championship team (across all sports) with a banner going forward, but this is hopefully to set it off.”

Basketball league champs emerge

Heading into the final week of the basketball regular season and four teams have already secured the No. 1 seed from their leagues into the playoffs.

The Camas boys (4A Greater St. Helens League), Mountain View girls (3A GSHL) and Seton Catholic girls (1A Trico League) and Seton Catholic boys (1A Trico) have secured top spots to bi-district and district playoffs.

The Union girls (4A GSHL) are on the cusp.

After back-to-back wins over rival Camas, the Union girls can clinch the No. 1 seed to the 4A bi-district tournament with a win Tuesday over Battle Ground.

Top seeds for other leagues likely will come down to a deciding game this week.

The 3A GSHL boys race will be determined Tuesday when Prairie (5-1 3A GSHL) hosts Mountain View (5-2). The winner will be the No. 1 seed to the bi-district, and the loser gets the No. 2 spot.

The 2A GSHL boys race likely will come down to Friday’s matchup when Mark Morris (10-2) plays at R.A. Long (11-1).

And all signs point to the 2A GSHL girls title being decided on Thursday when Woodland (11-1) plays at Columbia River (11-1).

Of course, all of this is dependent on the weather not throwing off the schedule this week.

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