Winning ways — Timpview girls take championship despite run of setbacks

How do you win a state championship?

If you're the Timpview girls basketball team, you lose your best player for the entire year, before the season even starts. Then begin your campaign with a preseason losing streak. Break in a first-year coach, Lose to your eventual state-finals opponent by 21 the first time you play them. Gain momentum throughout the entire league season, only to lose an overtime contest to your biggest rivals just before the playoffs.

Then win four tournament games like the rest of the season never happened. Which is what Timpview did en route to the 4A state championship.

Region 7

The Timpview Thunderbirds might not have had the perfect season, but they did find the perfect ending, and hoisting that trophy was all that really mattered in the end.

Timpview's six seniors went out with a bang, and a lot of happy tears, as Kelden Wright led the team in scoring that final game. Aubrey Reeves added 11, including 5-for-6 from the line, and Karlee Weight grabbed 10 points in only 17 minutes. Ashley Fisher, Jen Farnsworth and Jane Anne Jackson all contributed on both ends of the court.

But much of the final game belonged to the underclassmen who will be fighting to repeat next year without much of this year's heart but with Alexis Kaufusi, who made a surprise one-minute appearance in the final after tearing her ACL last summer.

"We just grew up as a team, learned to play without Kaufusi," said Timpview coach Kawika Akina. "They played their hearts out, they're crying tears of joy now."

This year's No. 1 sharpshooter Gabrielle Pinegar, who drained seven treys in the tourney in addition to her 52 points, 15 assists and 10 steals, was only a junior. And Chelsea Bridgewater, who added 36 points and 26 boards, was only a sophomore.

After a relatively unimpressive season Timpview easily slid past Cyprus in the first round and Box Elder in the second, leaving the T-Birds in a surprise matchup between two Cinderella schools in the semifinals: themselves and the Sky View Bobcats.

From the opening tip the T-Birds' annihilation of the school up north began, and they broke the sound barrier heading into the finals with a 70-24 explosion, spurred by their intense press defense.

And then they faced the Tigers, a daunting task after losing both regular season meetings to Orem and five straight to the Region 7 champions over the last two years.