Consistently hosting some of the state’s top teams, yet never quite in the spotlight, the Three Rivers League once again looks like it could be the most competitive in the state. Every team is capable of beating one another up on any given weeknight which could make for some exciting games later in the winter.
Topping the league last year was Tigard, which suffered just one defeat in league play. While successful coach Steve Naylor decided to step down at the conclusion of last season, they should still be in the conversation for a deep playoff run. West Linn and Oregon City are always competitive, and with Tigard rounded up the top-three a season ago. From there a total of five wins made up the gap between them and the rest of the league.
What makes the Three Rivers League so good and deep though is not only talent level, but the multiple coaches that roam the sidelines every night. Many coaches brought up just how well-coached every team in the league is. Just this year another successful coach is joining the fray as Wes Pappas takes over the Tualatin Timberwolves.
With so many talented teams, it’s hard to predict how the season may go. What will be true is that every night will be a challenge for each team and that whoever emerges will be completely deserving of the title. And that doesn’t include how many teams it could be sending to the playoffs.
“We play in one of the toughest leagues in the state,” Lake Oswego coach Jake Anders said. “If you’re not ready to compete every day in our league you get stomped.”
Canby Cougars (Last season: 10-15, 6-8 league, ranked #32)
A season ago there was a distinct separation in the Three Rivers League. Tigard, West Linn, and Oregon City held the top three places while the Canby Cougars sat in fourth-- five games behind Oregon City. This season the Cougars are hungry to prove that they are ready to take that next step.
Last year consisted of many ups and downs for head coach Chuck Knight and his team. There was a nine-game losing streak early on in the season as girls struggled to adjust to new roles, but the Cougars ended the year with momentum as it won six of its final ten games.
Canby is a team with plenty of potential, but not a lot of depth so in order to make a run they will need to stay healthy. One player who Knight said is ready to make the leap is Naarai Gomez, who was thrust into a starting role last season after the original starter tore her ACL.
If there is to be any downfall this season it may come from allowing the ebbs and flows of the year dictate how the team plays a little too much.
“I think it’s going to be really important that our kids understand that you can’t get too hyped up for one team and come out flat for another team,” Knight said. “They just have to be ready to play every night.”
But the Cougars also have a lot of continuity which could help weather the storm when the team reaches trying times. That leads to an increased sense of chemistry and other intangible benefits.
“I think our kids enjoy playing with each other and playing well together,” Knight said. “They are more than happy to share the ball with each other, they trust each other. They built that in the summer and I think that’s going to carry over.”
Canby looks to have the potential to burst that bubble near the top of the conference, but of course, a lot would need to go right. If Knight can get his team off to a fast start, the Cougars could enter that conversation sooner rather than later.
Lake Oswego Lakers (Last season: 4-21, 1-13 league, ranked #37)
Oftentimes, conversations late into a season are focused on state playoff contenders or on which teams could get hot at the right time and make a surprise run. The reality is that some teams are focusing more on rebuilding at that point. One team that could prove to be a sterling example of how to rebuild a program is the Lake Oswego Lakers.
This season will be head coach Jake Anders’ second season at the helm of the Lakers. While the team has been near the bottom of the table over the past few seasons, there is currently a lot of positive momentum developing within the program.
The first priority is building the program up starting with the youth program. Anders and his staff want to develop players from a young age and have implemented multiple clinics at the youth level. By eighth grade, players are introduced to the varsity system which helps with integration. Anders said that while it’s too early to speculate, he believes that there is already a strong nucleus coming up the ranks.
Another emphasis among the program is allowing girls at every level to play a significant role in developing the culture. Every Tuesday the girls will come together for a 30-minute meeting that emphasizes program-building, establishing dialogue, and forging connections.
“It’s really good because it’s about getting girls on the same page to talk and voice their own opinion on things and kinda things of what they see, what they want to do, and how they want to build their culture,” Anders said.
This season Lake Oswego is off to a hot start. It won its first two games against Centennial and Gresham and in a few weeks, it will be participating in the Nike Interstate Shootout.
The Lakers will have four returning players that Anders expects to contribute a lot: Kate Anders, Lily Carlson, Megan Woolard, and Emma Jeanson. While the team is younger, there is already plenty of competition at practices that Anders soon expects to transfer during games.
”The experience that these girls are getting now is going to help them two to three years down the road,” Anders said.
As one of the youngest programs in the Three Rivers League, growth is still expected and encouraged. It’s a team that is slowly, but surely, building back up to compete in the playoffs on a yearly basis. It may be a trying a tedious process at times, but the Lakers are building something, and that’s exciting.
Lakeridge Pacers (10-14, 5-9 league, ranked #29)
The Lakeridge Pacers saw a promising season end just little too soon last year.
The Pacers won three of its first five league games, but won just one of its final five games before falling to eventual champion Benson in the first round of the playoffs.
Once again Lakeridge is off to another promising start to the season. Head coach Jason Brown and his team are currently 2-0 and the offense is clicking; putting up over 50 points each game.
The Pacers’ first big challenge will come at the PIL Holiday Classic at Grant High School where they will take on some of the better teams around the state. The league season will start shortly after the tournament and Lakeridge will open with tough games against West Linn, Canby, and Lake Oswego.
Guard Abbi Fedrizzi is the sole senior on the roster and 6-foot-1 post Kiersten Weiler will provide an outlet in the paint.
Once again, Lakeridge figures to be in the mix of teams competing for the Three Rivers League title, and if they can continue to build on its opening-season momentum, then there could be some meaningful games later in the season.
Oregon City Pioneers (Last season: 17-8, 11-3 league, ranked #10)
One Three Rivers League team that always seems to be consistently good is the Oregon City Pioneers. It’s been since 2014 that they last won a state title, but they finished second to Southridge in 2017 and seem to always finish near the top of its conference.
The Pioneers always seem to play a difficult non-league schedule and this season is no different. They play Jesuit and Grant before playing in the PIL Holiday Classic.
“We are excited to get this season started,” head coach Tiffani Traver said. “We graduated a lot of talent but also were able to reload and have some very skilled players in our program. Our schedule is tough which will help prepare us for the conference and also for the playoffs."
Traver said that she expects seniors Katie Kathan and Tyra Bradford as well as junior Emmaly Welch to make immediate impacts. She described Bradford as the motor of the team and Kathan as one of the team’s better wing attackers.
The Pioneers will look to keep up its identity of being a fast, scrappy, and difficult team to play against. Much like years past, they will want to score quickly and get set up into their press.
While a trip to the Chiles Center may be every team’s goal, Traver is doing her best to make sure that her team continues to focus solely on the present.
“Our goal is always to first compete for a league title and then secondly compete for a state title,” she said. “We have been working really hard on being mentally tough. We know there are a lot of talented teams within the state and if we are able to keep our composure when those teams make runs, we will be able to continue to compete.”
Tigard Tigers (Last season: 26-4, 13-1 league, ranked #2)
Last season there was only one Oregon team to defeat Southridge before the 6A state playoffs: the Tigard Tigers. It’s an achievement that speaks to the type of talent that Tigard has year in and year out.
The Tigers have been the model of consistency over the past decade, winning 11 league titles in 13 years, but the coach that led them to that success, Stever Naylor, decided to step down over the offseason. Mallory Goldammer, who assisted under Naylor for five seasons, will take over the team as interim head coach for the next season.
Tigard fell to Sheldon in the quarterfinals last March in a season in which it only lost one game by two points against West Linn. Two starters from that team will be returning this season: seniors Kennedy Brown and Delaney Leavitt who have already stepped into leadership roles according to Goldammer. One of the Tigers' focus’ this season will be growth.
“I think the most important thing for us is to just see growth from the beginning to the end,” Goldammer said. “As a team, we want to come out and work hard and keep the tradition of Tigard being a hard-working team.”
As always, Tigard’s goal is to play a tough brand of defense while getting up and down the floor.
“We’re going to try and get out and play and get some easy baskets when we can and if we can, Goldammer said. “I think the girls are excited about that, to play up and down a little bit, and show their athleticism and their speed.”
The Tigers will open the season with a difficult season stretch of non-league play that culminates with the PIL Holiday Classic in December before trying to repeat as league champions and make another run to the Chiles Center.
Tualatin Timberwolves (Last season: 9-16, 5-9 league, ranked #27)
It didn’t take long for first-year head coach Wes Pappas to realize that he was taking over a special team.
After spending six seasons at the helm of Sherwood, he is looking forward to the new challenge of working with a talented Tualatin team that he believes has as much talent as any team in the Three Rivers League.
Fresh off a 9-16 season that saw the Timberwolves finish in the middle of the conference before graduating five girls that played significant minutes, Pappas acknowledges that the upcoming season will have its ups and downs, but he couldn’t be any more excited for it.
“It’s a group that’s underachieved, but they’re just really eager to learn and they’re really focusing in like crazy,” Pappas said. “We had a fantastic summer so I have the feeling that we’re going to be a really difficult team to beat.”
Pappas believes that his girls are continuing to grow in confidence over the offseason. A season ago Tualatin had many little moments such as beating eventual #4 ranked West Linn, but they also lost to some teams that he believes they shouldn’t have.
Over the past ten seasons, Pappas’ teams gave up the fewest amount of points in the state nine times and he plans on bringing that defensive 2-3 scheme that he coached under at Tigard to Tualatin.
This season he will have junior Natalie Lathrop, a 6-foot-3 post, at the center of everything and Pappas said that he plans to have his team play through her in the post. Other players that he said to keep an eye on are juniors Aurora Davis and Kasidy Javernick as well as Teagan Gaviola and Sophie Wong.
“To a person, everybody’s skill level is more than I thought it was coming in, and just their overall desire to get better and put in extra time was great,” Pappas said.
He added: “I think the talents here, it’s just harnessing it in some way. I think sometimes you just need a fresh start.”
West Linn Lions (Last season: 21-8, 11-3 league, ranked #4)
If there’s one team in the Three Rivers League with the unique mix of youth and deep playoff experience it may just be the West Linn Lions.
Led by second-year coach Brooke Cates, the Lions are looking to make it further in the state tournament after falling to Beaverton in the quarterfinals last season. West Linn is still young-- there is not a single senior on the roster-- but now boasts more established talent.
“We were so so young last year that once we got to the Chiles Center it was a little bit too big for us,” Cates said. “I’m hoping we’ll get over that hump and grow mentally and emotionally and hopefully we’ll be able to make a run down the stretch.”
One player that Cates projects to be a catalyst on both sides of the ball is Aaronette Vonleh, a 6-foot-4 post that continues to gain confidence by the season. Having a player with the caliber of Vonleh in the middle allows the Lions to take advantage of double-teams while also freeing a bevy of talented shooters.
Junior Cami Fulcher is a talented and athletic guard while Payton Shelstad can help space the floor. Cates said that she wants her team to be scrappy and fast, but also notes how the Lions will be a sum of its parts.
“That one whole year of all these really young players, I’ve witnessed all the growth, and they have worked really hard in the offseason,” Cates said. “It’s been an exciting first couple of weeks, just a good vibe in the gym.”
The Lions have an arsenal of returning young talent that already proved itself a year ago. By March it could be a team ready to peak at the right time and make it back to the Chiles Center.
St. Mary’s Blues (Last season: 11-15, 7-9 league, ranked #22)
Seemingly always in the playoffs, yet never really mentioned in the title-contending conversation, the St. Mary’s Blues are ready for another bite at the apple in the Three Rivers League.
Head coach Dewey Taylor usually manages to coach his team out of the first round of the playoffs, but a year ago his Blues were knocked out in the first round by Century.
“Our teams are used to playing hard competition and every position matters so often,” Taylor said. “It’s that playoff intensity and it’s there every night.”
St. Mary’s graduated seven seniors last year, including two-time defensive player of the year Mya Brazile, but Taylor is excited about the talent that is stepping up including seniors Marley Johnson and Anna Eddy, both four-year varsity players that lead by example. Add in Abby Graham who had a great club season and 6-foot-1 freshman point guard Sophia Bell, and the Blues may have a recipe for future success.
“We lost a lot with last year's graduating class. I would say a huge strike in our culture,” Taylor said. “I’m glad we have the seniors who are going to come in and be big leaders this year and can kind of continue that, but you just can’t duplicate what last year’s class brought.”
Like any team coming off of a large graduating class, one thing Taylor wants to prioritize is a developed identity. If St. Mary’s can do that, then maybe, just maybe, they can make it back into the playoffs and advance past the first round of the playoffs yet again.
“It’s all about building a culture,” Taylor said. “Who do we want to be throughout who we play and who we face and go out and showcase it every time we step on the floor.”
