KIRKLAND — Is the third time really the charm? The Lake Washington girls basketball team hopes so.
In each of the past two postseasons, the Kangaroos fought their way to the state finals before falling to Garfield High School. Lake Washington lost the Class 3A title to the Bulldogs in 2020 and suffered a devastating defeat in the 2022 championship as the Bulldogs erased a five-point deficit with less than two minutes left to win 39-38.
While they try to put the past behind them and stay focused on tomorrow, the returning Kangaroos admit that the heartbreak of last year’s state title game has served as fuel.
“Well, obviously afterward, we were all really upset and just kind of felt robbed almost,” senior Rae Butler-Wu said. “So coming into this year, I think we wanted to prove to ourselves that we deserved that championship and we deserved that win.”
Last year, the Kangaroos were led by a pair of senior all-state Division I athletes in University of Washington-bound Elise Hani and Idaho commit Rosa Smith. With both of their top scorers gone coming into the season, coach Jeff Wilson said that many expected Lake Washington to take a “step back.”
Instead, the Kangaroos (23-2) are back in the thick of the state championship race.
They wrapped up their fourth consecutive 3A KingCo Conference title with a win over Juanita on Feb. 8, and finished second at the SeaKing District Tournament after a 66-55 loss to their omnipresent rival, Garfield, on Feb. 18.
After defeating Stanwood at regionals last Saturday, 70-52, Lake Washington earned a first-round bye and will play either No. 13 seed Everett or fifth-seeded Lincoln on Thursday in the state quarterfinals at the Tacoma Dome.
While they don’t have a true star player like they did in years past, the Kangaroos’ biggest strength is their impressive depth.
It seems there is a different hero every night.
“This year’s team, we have eight kids averaging between six and 10 points a game,” Wilson said. “We’ve had a different leading scorer in eight games this year. If you come scout us on any given night, you might see two or three of our kids have great games and think you can leave the other kids open, and that’s really not the case.”
Freshman Ashley Uusitalo averages a team-high 10.1 points per game, while senior Sydney Hani, is close behind at 8.9.
“Basically everyone who doesn’t start can play just as well as us and keep up the momentum in every single game,” Hani said. “I definitely think that is a big part of why we’ve been so successful this season. I genuinely believe that anybody that comes off the bench is just as capable as us starters.”
Hani and fellow senior Jolie Sim are the only remaining players on the roster who were a part of the 2020 and 2022 state finals teams, though Hani was forced to watch from the bench last year after tearing her ACL the previous spring.
While there have been differences in the team’s strengths year to year, Wilson says that consistency has been a key part of the team’s sustained run of success — consistency in the messages that are taught throughout the Kangaroos’ youth program, and in the faces that deliver them.
Wilson is in his sixth year as the team’s head coach, while assistant Lizzie Giovacchini is in year five, and the JV coaching staff has been there for three. With the same coaches teaching the same lessons year after year, young players often arrive ready to make a difference right away.
“We’ve always done a really good job of intermixing our upperclassmen with our younger classmen,” Wilson said. “I think it shows with the way that they play, because freshmen aren’t scared to step up and play a bigger role, because they know that the seniors will support them.”
Many of the Kangaroos have been playing together since elementary school, leading to a tight-knit team atmosphere where the players know they can trust each other, and value their time together on the floor.
“We’ve known how important it is that we’ve all grown up together,” Sim said. “And I think that’s a very big theme for our program, we just want to be able to keep playing with each other as long as we can. We don’t recruit or anything here. I’ve been playing with these people since like fourth grade, so the family aspect is very much here as well.”
As the No. 3 seed in Class 3A, Lake Washington is one of the favorites to go all the way, where No. 1 Garfield could be awaiting them once again in the state finals. After watching the Bulldogs raise the title trophy twice in recent years, the Kangaroos are excited about the possibility of revenge.
The program’s first state championship would be special no matter who they play, but the chance to finally topple Garfield would be especially sweet.
“We’d love another opportunity at them,” Wilson said. “… Our two programs are kind of top of the pecking order, right? We’ve played against each other in the past two state championships, and this year, either we’ve been (No.) 1 in the RPI or they’ve been (No.) 1 in the RPI. We’ve been one-two, flip-flopping the whole year. We just had a really competitive district championship game with them, so yes, we would love another opportunity.”