First-year Mountain View girls basketball coach Chuck Knight normally doesn’t make too long of postgame locker room speeches after wins, but Friday was an exception, he said.
Mountain View repeated as 3A Greater St. Helens League champions with a 57-54 victory over Evergreen — its first outright league title since the 1997 team went 18-0 in the AAA Greater St. Helens League. The Thunder shared the league crown with Evergreen in 2024.
“Our kids really believed, for sure, in each other and our system,” Knight said. “They’ve worked hard with a positive attitude all year. … They deserve it — all of the effort, all of the hard work throughout the summer on, they absolutely deserve it.”
The game was part of a girls/boys doubleheader at Evergreen’s Fieldhouse on a night that Evergreen’s boys basketball team celebrated its 1995 undefeated state championship team. Most players and coaches were in attendance and got honored at halftime. Among them was Hall of Fame head coach John Triplett, who addressed the crowd. Evergreen boys topped Mountain View, 58-56.
Mountain View’s girls won both league matchups against Evergreen this season, but Friday’s result didn’t come easy to remain unbeaten in league with one game remaining. Only once in the final 11:51 minutes of the game did either team have a lead larger than 3.
Tied at 42-all early in the fourth, the teams traded leads on its opening four possessions.
Like they have all season, the Plainsmen got big numbers from Kimora Ross (game-high 27 points) and Adrian Wright (11), but the final 4-plus minutes also came with big contributions from Holt and another freshman, Courtney Neal (12 points). Neal had six over the final 8 minutes, and defensively gave the Plainsmen life by stealing an in-bounds pass with 4.3 seconds to go with Mountain View’s lead at 56-54. In all, Mountain View overcame three fouls by Evergreen on full-court press in-bounds possessions over the final 7.8 seconds in order to reach the bonus. Once there, Amaya Paschal hit 1 of 2 free throws in the closing seconds.
Just like Evergreen, Mountain View got a big game from a pair of sophomores in Paschal (team-best 19 points) and Mylee Thompson (eight). Paschal’s lay-in off a feed from Sveva Bernasconi gave the Thunder the lead for good inside 30 seconds, the second of two field goals where the duo connected late in a back-and-forth game. Knight slid Bernasconi to be the primary ball-handler against Evergreen’s tough-nosed defense when senior guard Layla Senderson fouled out with 1:56 remaining.
Bernasconi (11 points) is accustomed to big games. The Italian exchange student is spending the school year at Mountain View and played on Italy’s U17 Women’s National Team last summer that qualified for the FIBA World Cup in Mexico. But nothing compares to what she described as an electric atmosphere against the Plainsmen.
“I could feel I had so much energy, especially the last few minutes of the game,” she said.
Knight said his team is playing its best ball of the season, but at the same time, there’s still more room for growth as the postseason nears.
Paschal, the sophomore, agrees.
“I like how we push the ball together,” she said. “We’re starting to play really well together and we’re finding what each other is good at.”
“Said Bernasconi: “When we do stick together, we play great defense and great defense leads to great offense.”
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MOUNTAIN VIEW 57, EVERGREEN 54
MOUNTAIN VIEW — Mylee Thompson 8, Jadlyn Senderson 11, Layla Senderson 4, Sveva Bernasconi 11, Camaria Brown 5, Amaya Paschal 19. Totals 24 (2) 8-14 57.
EVERGREEN — Addison Carter 0, Kimora Ross 27, Coutney Neal 10, Camryn Holt 3, Aiyanah Sefronio-Byrd 3, Adrian Wright 11. Totals 20 (4) 10-16 54
Mtn. View 12 10 18 13 – 57
Evergreen 10 18 12 14 – 54
