Player of the Year: Pocatello’s ‘unique’ power was 1,000/1,000 star, Garza
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POCATELLO — For four years, Kenna Garza has been a key cog in the wheel of success for the Pocatello High School girls basketball program. The team boasted a 70-30 cumulative record during those four year, culminating in its first state championship this season.
Along the way, Garza scored more than 1,000 points, grabbed more than 1,000 rebounds, earned numerous individual honors, signed to play at Boise State and secured her all-time place among Poky athletics greats.
Asked if she thinks another player like the senior center will ever come through the program again, Poky girls head basketball coach Sunny Evans said she believes she could coach another 20 years and not see another player like Garza.
Garza, Evans said, is unique in her ability to control the paint while also being able to shoot from and defend on the perimeter, and she has worked tirelessly to develop that “unique” skillset.
“There hadn’t been up this point, so I feel pretty comfortable saying, ‘No,'” Evans said, pointing to all the things Garza did during this year’s state tournament as a microcosm of what she was all year and throughout her Poky career. … “You throw in all the intangibles with her — she just wasn’t going to let us lose that weekend, and if you put all those things together, that’s a pretty unique kid. I feel so fortunate having been a part of this with her.”
Garza was fantastic all season, but she took it to another level when the Thunder needed just three wins to claim the program’s first banner.
During the state tournament, she averaged 23 points, 10.3 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and 2 steals per game.
“Her stats were off the charts, they were unheard of, but it was her leadership, I think, that was just as important,” Evans said.
In the most competitive postseason game Pocatello played this season, a 54-52 state semifinal victory over Blackfoot, Garza scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. She also ventured away from the lane to hit a pair of massive fourth-quarter 3-pointers. And asked about those shots on more than one occasion, Garza was quick to send the credit for them to her teammates.
She said that hitting those shots were the highlight of the season for her — up until the final buzzer of the following night’s 62-46 championship game victory over Middleton and she got to celebrate with the girls.
Long before she drove her team down the stretch, Garza became, as far as Evans knows, the first player to records 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds for the Thunder.
Asked if she was surprised when Garza reached those incredible totals, Evans said she was not, because Garza was always ready to compete and put everything she had on the floor.
“She averaged a double-double as a freshman, so not really,” the coach said. … “It doesn’t surprise me because she didn’t shy away from anything, from day one.”
Garza said that the dual-threat totals were a fruit of her countless hours of work towards becoming a multi-faceted threat.
“That’s what I’ve worked for my entire life. I’ve just known that, if I put my heart into something, I can do it,” she said.
As a freshman, she set some tangible goals for her career — chief among them were the 1,000-1,000 mark and a championship.
“I set those goals and I hit them, and I think that’s an accomplishment that I can be pretty proud of for the rest of my life.”
Next up for Garza is a move west, where she will join the Boise State Broncos next season as one of the top female basketball players to come out of the state.
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