Tualatin rallies for first title

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PORTLAND - Tualatin rode the stellar shooting of freshman Love Lei Best, and its air-tight defensive play to an amazing second-half comeback and first girls Class 6A state basketball championship Saturday afternoon at the University of Portland's Chiles Center.

The Timberwolves trailed 54-35 to Clackamas with 2:32 left in the third quarter due to amazing three-point shooting by the Cavs, but then rallied for a 63-58 win in one of the most incredible turnarounds in Oregon's prep hoop history.

Tualatin, which had never reached a final at any classification, trailed only 30-25 at the half, but Clackamas made its first four three-point attempts and nine of its first 12 shots in the third quarter and seemed destined for a second title in three years when senior Jazzy Davidson, a senior guard who is headed for Southern Cal, hit a trey for the 19-point lead.

The Timberwolves immediately responded and played the game out on a 28-4 run.

"The whole game it felt like we had the ability to come back, but we were just not hitting our marks and being where we needed to be," a smiling Tualatin senior Jordyn Smith said during the team's postgame celebration. "And once we started to do that and get back to the Tualatin way, we kicked it up and the outcome came out the way we wanted it to."

Best, a 5-foot-2 guard, finished with a game-high 26 points on 8-of-18 shooting, including a make on all four of her three-point attempts. Best, as did Smith, played all 32 minutes. Tualatin finished 26-2.

Davidson had 17 points and 10 rebounds and senior Sara Barhoum added 18 points for the Cavaliers, who beat Tualatin 55-53 on Jan. 2. Clackamas finished 27-3.

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