STORY & PHOTOS BY CHRIS HANSEN
NW Blazers – 2008 Riverside TOC Champions
AUBURN, Wash. - An MVP caliber weekend from Joslyn Tinkle led the Northwest Blazers to the Riverside TOC Championship and earned the 6-foot-4 forward the MVP award. The Blazers are now 16-0 in the fresh club season after winning the Arizona Elite Spring Classic last weekend.
The Blazers defeated Category 5, the team that knocked off the host team Auburn Riverside, in the final 56-33. The team’s opening game started out a little rough against Premier Elite but a second half run gave them a 17-point margin of victory. In the tournament no team played the Blazers closer than 17 though Y.E.A. was in striking distance, down seven with five minutes to play.
Tournament MVP Joslyn Tinkle with a
hook over two defenders.
The Blazers have a little bit of everything despite playing without one of their best wing players, Jordan Sullivan. Sullivan lives in Sidney, Mont., which is about as far east in Montana as you can get without stumbling into North Dakota. The location is also nearly 300 miles from a regional airport in Billings. That accompanied with a Friday night track meet left the Blazers down one.
The Blazer’s perimeter players were still plenty good without Sullivan. Led by the trio of Kellie McCann-Smith, Jazmine Redmon and Danielle Walter the Blazers backcourt looked as solid as any in the tournament and maybe in the west.
McCann-Smith scored the ball well, Redmon flies all over the court challenging any and all ball handlers and Walter’s flare for the highlight play together can be overwhelming for the opposition.
Because Riverside Select lost their opening game to Category 5 the brackets never yielded the showdown between the Blazer’s guards and Riverside’s duo of Nichole Jackson and Mercedes Wetmore.
But let’s not forget what sets this team apart from the rest in the area-- it has Tinkle. At 6-4 she is as mobile as many wings and her touch and ability to finish is nothing short of incredible. There simply aren’t too many players as skilled as this young lady, anywhere. Tinkle is basically unstoppable as Southridge found out in their quarterfinals.
Jazmine Redmon attacks the hoop at
the Riverside TOC.
Many teams employ a zone defense to try and slow Tinkle down but you never see her frustrated or pressing to make a play. She and her teammates are very patient and work the ball around to get a good shot. They score the ball well from the perimeter so the Blazers are not one dimensional offensively.
They are not singular geographically either with players from three states. A majority of the players are from Spokane, Wash., while three join the squad from Montana and one player, Hanna Potter, is from Edina, Minn.
So impressive were the Blazers that they not only took home the High School Elite division but their 14U team took home the High School Division championship. This summer the Blazer’s look forward to proving themselves against the top sponsored programs from around the country and having seen many of these teams already this season I can say they are more than capable of competing. The End of the Trail hosted by Oregon City High School, July 6-9, will be their first opportunity as teams from all over the country congregate for what has become the premier event on the west coast.
High School Elite Final Results All Tournament Team All-Tournament 1st Team All-Tournament 2nd Team Discuss This on Our Message Board: Click Here [1]
1st: Northwest Blazers
2nd: Category 5
3rd: YEA
4th: Tree of Hope
Tournament MVP: Joslyn Tinkle
Alyssa Charleston, Catagory 5
Kelly McCane Smith, NW Blazers
Brittany Barrington, YEA
Mercedes Wetmore, Riverside
Carly Perkins, Cascades
Aleisha Gilbert, Catagory 5
Tayler Weiks, Tukwila Reign
Katie Collier, Tree of Hope
Kinzi Poteet, Blaze
Jazmin Redmon, NW Blazers
Chris Hansen is the National Director of Scouting for Women’s Basketball at HoopGurlz.com. He leads the panel that evaluates and ranks girl's basketball prospects nationally for HoopGurlz. Chris has been involved in the women’s basketball community since 1998 as a coach, trainer, evaluator and reporter. He can be reached at chris@hoopgurlz.com [2].
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