HILLSBORO – From the first day that the Oregon girls assembled for practice, they knew the goal for the Northwest Shootout.
Washington has had its border rival’s number of late, but not Saturday, as Bendu Yeaney of St. Mary’s Academy had 16 points and nine rebounds to lead Oregon to an 84-76 win at Liberty High School.
Washington had won eight of the past nine Northwest Shootouts, including a 103-61 victory in last year’s game.
The Northwest Shootout, founded in 1995, is an all-star game between the best senior boys and girls basketball players from each state.
“We were definitely aware of it, knowing however many of the past few years we’ve been getting blown out by Washington,” said South Salem senior Evina Westbrook, who had 11 points. “We didn’t want our senior year to end like it had been.”
Oregon meant business from the start, never trailing after making its second basket of the game. Oregon led 38-37 at halftime, then used a couple of second-half spurts to pull away to its first win since 2013.
Washington leads the series 14-7.
As one of the country’s top women’s basketball recruits this past year, the Tennessee-bound Westbrook was the most decorated player in the game. Several other Oregon players will join Westbrook on big-time college stages, including Yeaney (Indiana) and Aleah Goodman (Oregon State).
Oregon ran off to a 31-17 lead midway through the first half, but Washington used a 9-0 run late in the half to close the deficit to a single point by halftime. Washington’s Josie Matz, who will play college ball at Portland, hit two three-pointers early in the second half to keep it close, but Oregon eventually seized control.
Westbrook and Oregon City’s N’Dea Flye hit back-to-back three-pointers to increase the lead to 55-48. Then, after Washington closed to within 60-59, Southridge’s Kaelin Immel scored four points during a 9-0 run as Oregon built a double-digit lead with 7:55 remaining.
“We took more pride in wanting to win. This is pretty important to us. We love to compete. We all knew what we had to do,” Westbrook said.
Also scoring in double figures for Oregon were Goodman with 13 and Immel with 12.
Washington’s lone double-figure scorer with 20 was Matz, who went 4 of 6 from three-point range.
Saturday’s game was the end on Oregon soil in high school for Westbrook, who will join Oregonians Mercedes Russell and Jaime Nared at Tennessee next season. Though South Salem came up short of a Class 6A state title this past season, Westbrook was part of state championship teams in 2015 and 2016.
“I was so proud of this year’s team, even though we didn’t get it. They worked hard and that’s all I can ask for. Then to go out with a W with this group of girls today is pretty special,” Westbrook said.
--Nick Daschel | ndaschel@oregonian.com | @nickdaschel