No. 17 Cleveland High School girls basketball threw everything they could at her during the first round of the 6A state tournament.
At halftime, the Warriors were in good shape only down 31-21 to No. 16 Sherwood on the Bowmen’s home floor. Senior Ava Heiden only had 9 points and 9 rebounds, which is a win.
But for a few minutes in the third quarter, not even a cut on the Iowa-commit’s face could slow Heiden down as Sherwood pulled away and eventually won 54-42 to advance to the second round.
“I feel like she always just elevates our team, she’s always giving her 100% down on the block,” Sherwood senior Sabrina Flowers said of Heiden. “It’s so hard to compete with her because she has so much heart and hustle.”
While Heiden, a 6-foot-4 center, draws the eyes from opponents, the Bowmen guards came out with that same heart and hustle to begin the game against Cleveland.
Flowers, Paige Bittner and Tali Sanders – all seniors – swarmed the Warriors guard from tipoff, coming up with five steals as a team in the first quarter alone.
Setting that tone in the front court was vital for Sherwood to make it known that this isn’t a one-girl show.
“We’re a full team, we’re not here without everybody,” Sherwood head coach Matt Sanders said. “They did a really good job defensively. We were just riding and flying around and being physical. We hang our hat on defense.”
“We just saw in our scout that they had really good guards,” Flowers added. “We were just going to put our heart in our defense today for all 32 minutes we can. It wasn’t really a full emphasis, but rather all of us just decided to buy into it.”
Mix in a made 3-pointer from Bittner, Sanders and junior Kylie Yamanaka and it seemed like Sherwood was getting ready to blow the game open.
Instead, Cleveland senior Addy Huss had different ideas. She was able to finally break through the guards and took it to the rim to score on a couple vital layups to keep the Warriors in it.
At the end of the first quarter, Huss even threw up a half-court heave at the buzzer that found the net to cut the Sherwood lead to 18-12.
Meanwhile Huss was the leader down low as well, challenging Heiden for every rebound and helping senior sisters Kamakila and Malia Waiwaiole deny any entry pass to Heiden.
That forced a lower scoring second quarter where Malia Waiwaiole helped with the scoring alongside Huss, leading to a 31-21 Sherwood lead at the break.
“She’s a phenomenal player, she’s the straw that stirs the drink,” Cleveland head coach Poeke Waiwaiole said of Heiden. “It was pretty obvious that you have to make sure she doesn’t kill you by herself.”
While it’s easy to diagnose the problem, holding it off for 32 is an entirely different challenge that the Warriors succeeded in for 20 minutes. Heiden had 9 points and 10 rebounds about halfway through the third as Cleveland cut the deficit to six.
However, Heiden started to find her groove down low, hitting a layup, getting fouled and making both free throws, and then popping out beyond the arc for a 3-pointer.
That stretch helped expand the lead back out to double digits for the Bowmen, and Heiden added in another running layup to extend it further.
Defensively, Sherwood continued to lay the wood as the Warriors had nowhere to work inside and the Bowmen guards swarmed up top.
Near the end of the run, Heiden took a blow to the face that opened up a cut on her right eyebrow, which started to bleed almost immediately.
The trainers got her covered up and cleaned off, she went back into the game and got fouled, making 1-of-2 from the line to finish with 10 points in the third alone.
“That just shows you how much she cares about her team,” Sanders said. “She’s like, ‘Fix me up, and get me back in the game now.’ That just shows you how much she cares about everybody here.”
Sherwood ended the third frame up 44-28 and drove the knife home in the fourth with Heiden hitting Bittner for an easy bucket and the duo swapping places soon after. Heiden added another lay in to finish the night with 23 points and 12 rebounds.
For Cleveland, the do-it-all senior in Huss ended the night with 23 points and 9 rebounds in her final high school basketball game. Malia Waiwaiole finished with 8 points.
The 2024 class has been a highly successful one for the Warriors program, and it’s one that understandably is close to coach Waiwaiole with his two twin daughters on it.
Most importantly, the class helped change the narrative in the program.
“When I took over, one of the lines I said in the interview, they knew I’d been around for a long time so they asked, ‘What’s your take on Cleveland?’ And I said, ‘Committed to mediocrity,’” Poeke Waiwaiole said. “Even with efforts like tonight that fell short, the whole culture has changed in the program where we expect to do well, we compete and we fight all the time against whoever it is.”
For Sherwood, the march rolls on into March as it will take on No. 1 overall seed South Medford next in the second round down south.
Going against the top seed is obviously a challenge, but the Bowmen believe their commitment to defense and belief in each other can get them through and punch a ticket to the Chiles Center.
“Numbers are a little intimidating, but I think our group is special,” Flowers said. “We’ve got a lot of heart, and if we all buy in I think we can do some damage.”
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