On Jan. 25, the Seton Catholic girls basketball team scored a thrilling 35-33 win over Jesuit of Beaverton, Ore.
The win was significant for many reasons.
For one, it was a win by a young, small Catholic school over an older, larger Catholic school with a rich tradition of athletic excellence.
Secondly, it was Seton Catholic’s first non-league win of the season after six previous losses against quality opponents.
And lastly, one of those earlier non-league losses was to the same Jesuit team, which rolled past Seton 51-23 on Dec. 7.
“That’s just our growth,” Seton Catholic coach Phil Kent said. “They’re recognizing they have to trust the process, trust the process. They have and I think it shows in the results.”
The process for the Cougars began with the start of practices in mid-November with a new head coach.
Well, a new, old head coach.
Kent founded the Seton Catholic girls basketball program in 2011 before stepping aside to focus on his duties as the school’s athletic director in 2020.
Joe Potter led the program the past four seasons, with Kent serving as his assistant.
But when Potter stepped down after last season, Kent was coaxed to return as head coach.
“It’s been incredible,” Kent said. “I love coaching girls basketball. I loved just being an assistant under Coach Potter. He did an amazing job. And so, you know, I got talked into coming back, but I absolutely love it. I have one of my alumni, a former player of mine (Emily Martin), coaching with me. And we just try to build on what Coach Potter started.”
Success in terms of victories didn’t come quickly. The Cougars dropped their first four games against tough non-league opponents. After two Trico League wins, Seton dropped another two non-leaguers over the winter break to fall to 2-6.
Since then, the Cougars have run off 11 straight wins — all against Trico League foes except for the win over Jesuit.
“I think of part of it was the mentality,” Kent said of Seton’s run of success. “Five of our girls went to the (state) final four in soccer. One of our girls played in the state championship game in softball last spring. Another one of our girls went to the dome in volleyball this fall. So they all recognized that they belonged.”
The mentality took hold on Jan. 25 against Jesuit.
“That game was one where we played 32 minutes of focused defense, physical defense,” Kent said. “Jesuit is the best defensive team we will play no matter what. (Jason Lowery) is an amazing defensive coach. We were forced to execute under really, really physical defense. And we did. So that mentality, you can just see it click.”
And the players see it as well.
“I think we improved a lot from the first meeting to the second meeting,” junior Remy Jenniges said. “The first meeting was like our second game all season, so we were still figuring things out with new coaches, new offense. I think of lot it was the team chemistry, team bonding and how much we’ve grown together, working on our offense, finding the open read got the looks we needed.”
The Cougars carried the confidence from the win against Jesuit to rolled past Columbia-White Salmon (51-28) and Kalama (83-47) last week to clinch a share of the Trico League title, along with the No. 1 seed into the district playoffs.
“I think we definitely started off with some really tough games,” junior Riley Seymer said. “But I think that definitely prepared us for the harder teams going into league, definitely learning how to push through and keep going. … Our chemistry has been built up ton through the hard games, so I think it’s been really beneficial.”
Tough games at district against the likes of Montesano and Hoquiam loom ahead. But the Cougars are not ready to start looking at the postseason quite yet. They still have two more league games to play before the playoffs begin.
“We’ve got to take care of Stevenson on Tuesday,” Kent said. “And we’ve got a really tough game Thursday against King’s Way. King’s Way plays amazing defense, and they’ve got a couple players that are just a handful to try and take care of. Right now, we’re focused on Stevenson, and then we’ll go one game at a time.”
