Reardan stifles rival Davenport 49-38 to reach championship game | State 2B girls

A couple of days ago, head coach Bob Swannack watched his Reardan girls basketball team struggle just to get into the quarterfinals of the State 2B Tournament.

Now the Screaming Eagles are in the title game.

Junior Tenice Waters scored 11 of her game-high 17 points in the fourth quarter as Reardan roared past ninth-seeded Davenport for a 49-38 win in the state semifinals on Friday at the Arena, securing a third victory over the Gorillas this season.

“It’s our rival,” Reardan junior Rylynn Green said of how the team finished, “so we just really wanted to go out there and beat them.”

The fourth-seeded Screaming Eagles (23-5) won their third game in a row at state after losing back-to-back games against Northwest Christian (in the Northeast 2B Tournament) and to Cle Elum-Roslyn (in a state seeding game).

Cle Elum, the No. 5 seed, awaits Reardan in the state championship, which is scheduled to tip at 5 p.m. Saturday.

“The girls had to get through adversity, and in the first game on Wednesday here (a 43-37 victory over Raymond-South Bend), you could tell we were debating whether we belong here or not,” Swannack said. “They figured it out, and we’re playing our best basketball right now.”

Davenport (23-6) was trying to beat Reardan for the first time this season after losing the first two matchups, 49-45 and 56-49.

“Offensively, they got us a little flustered,” Davenport head coach Dusty Oestreich said.” They’re pretty good at playing a physical style of basketball and getting people out of shape. It ended up being kind of a messy game, and we probably fell a little bit into that style of basketball tonight.”

Davenport senior Glenna Soliday, the NE2B Most Valuable Player, made 3 of 17 shots and finished with seven points. As a team, Davenport shot 29% (15-of-51) overall and made just 2 of 21 3s.

Yet Davenport was within two points, 26-24, late in the third quarter. The game turned, though, when sophomore Chasyn Waters banked in a contested 3 at the buzzer to give Reardan its largest lead to that point, 29-24.

Davenport hung around in the short-term: With 5 minutes left, Soliday hit a 3 to cut Reardan’s lead to 34-30. But then Tenice Waters answered with a 2 and then a banked-in 3 from the top of the circle, and Reardan’s lead remained at least seven from there.

Chasyn Waters finished with 10 points and a team-high 14 rebounds, and Green scored 14 points on 6-for-11 shooting while also being the primary defender on Soliday.

“She doesn’t realize how good she is,” Tenice Waters said of Green. “I have confidence every time I pass her the ball she’s going to make it.”

Reardan will be playing in the title game for the first time since 2013, when it won the latest of three straight championships.

Cle Elum-Roslyn 58, Napavine 44: Junior Nellie Nicholls scored 27 points to lead the fifth-seeded Warriors past the top-seeded Tigers in the semifinals and into the State 2B title game.

Nicholls made 11 of 21 shots and grabbed six rebounds; in the quarterfinals on Thursday, she scored 33 points on 13-of-19 shooting.

Senior Gracie Glondo added 12 points for Cle Elum (23-5), which has won five State 1A girls basketball titles but has never placed at the 2B tournament since reclassifying in 2020-21.

The Warriors shot 42.6% overall and never trailed against the Tigers (21-5).

Sophomore Ava Ondong led Napavine with nine points, while senior Hayden Kaut scored seven points and grabbed 14 rebounds. Napavine, which won a State 2B title in 2024, will play Davenport for third place at 11:15 a.m. Saturday.