Pocatello’s Garza beasts out against Blackfoot; Thunder claim a spot in the 5A championship game
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NAMPA — Before they made the journey from the Gate City to Boise, Pocatello center Kennasyn Garza received important marching orders from head coach Sunny Evans.
“Before we came here, I talked to Kenna, I said, ‘Look, I just need you to be a beast. I need you on both ends. I need you to be all you can be,'” Evans recalled.
The beast arose during Pocatello’s Friday night 5A semifinals matchup with Blackfoot at Nampa’s Ford Idaho Center.
Garza came storming out of the gates for the Thunder, scoring the game’s first five points and eight points in the first quarter. But the senior saved her most beastly salvos for the fourth quarter, when she twice stuck a dagger into the collective hearts of the Broncos with a pair of huge corner 3-pointers.
Evans called the shots “gutsy,” saying she was proud of Garza for “rising to the occasion.”
“She’s just not going to let us lose,” Evans said.
Little did the coach know, being a beast is Garza’s focus every day.
“That’s something that I think every game, to go into the game with a beast mentality and know that, if I play my best I am going to contribute to my team, and that’s all I care about,” Garza said.
Behind 25 points and 11 rebounds from their star, the 1-seed Thunder knocked off 4-seed Blackfoot, 56-54, to set up a Championship Saturday showdown with Middleton.
Garza’s quick start got the ball rolling in the right direction for Pocatello, who led 15-9 after the first quarter and took a 33-23 advantage into halftime.
But Blackfoot had some counterpunches in them.
Following exchanged deuces to start the second half, the Broncos went on a 14-point run. Blackfoot took its first lead of the game near the midway point of the third quarter on an and-1 three-point play from center Cambrie Waterhouse, which was followed by another bucket from Lexi Jackman.
The run came to a screeching halt when Poky’s Taylee Rogers drained a triple to pull her team back within one.
And after a third quarter that saw Blackfoot outscore the Thunder 18 to eight, the game headed into the fourth a 41-41 tie.
The two teams went back and forth, exchanging body blows with neither team gaining more than a two-point advantage until, with less than four minutes to play, Garza got open in the corner and drilled a triple to push her team ahead by four — 49-45.
Then, their next time back on their end of the court, Blackfoot left Garza uncovered in the same spot. And it produced the same result — a Garza 3 and an eruption from the Pocatello bench.
After the game, Garza called the two shot the biggest of her life.
“I just knew we were down a little bit, trying to compete,” she said. “We talked yesterday about how my team kind of bounces off me a little bit, so if I’m making big time shots, they’re going to make big time plays.”
Following the two deflating shots though, Blackfoot kept on fighting. An answer triple from Jaci Capson and free throw from Addison Tanner made it a three-point game with 21.9 second remaining.
Poky’s Alivia Marshall went 1-of-2 from the line following an intentional foul, giving her team a four-point edge. But Tanner rushed back down and canned a 3 to pull back within one.
The Broncos though, did not score again, missing on a potential game-winner at the buzzer.
Tanner paced the Blackfoot efforts, scoring 17 points while grabbing four rebounds and dishing out two assists. Capson scored scored 13 while Pocatello’s Abby Lusk joined Garza in double-figures with 12.
Evans gave credit to Blackfoot for its fight, but said it was expected from a talented and well-coached team. She then spoke about the resiliency her team showed, taking a punch to the mouth but fighting back.
“I love our resilience,” the coach said. “And something that we talked about, the coolest thing, maybe, about this team is, they just never falter or fracture — they never splinter when there’s a little bit of adversity — they just love each other and they trust each other.”
She added:
“We’ve been able to win in a lot of different ways and I like that, I like having that in our back pocket. It’s easy to win pretty and that’s a lot of fun, but, man, it’s really fun when you’ve got to win gritty ones and make plays on both ends of the floor.”
Evans, who was in high school in 1995 — the last time the Pocatello girls basketball program played for a state championship — said she is happy with where her team is mentally and physically as it prepares to win the program’s first ever banner.
Doing so, however, will require they beat a tough Middleton team which dispatched Mountain Home earlier Friday evening.
“For a while now, it’s seems like we’ve been on a little bit of a collision course with them,” Evans said. … “Both teams are going to try to impose their will — it’s going to be a little bit of a heavyweight fight.”
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