By Joanna Chadwick
WICHITA -- From the first day of basketball tryouts in November, Washburn Rural junior Brooklyn DeLeye carried with her the intense disappointment of failing to win a Class 6A volleyball title in October.
“Going in undefeated (to state volleyball) … we had this chip on our shoulder,” she said. “And then we just kind of … I guess, we gave it away. We didn’t play our best, and we knew that we had to in the state championship. And it was really disappointing.”
The goal shifted after volleyball to winning a state basketball title, and that’s just what the Junior Blues did on Saturday at Koch Arena with a 40-23 win over Derby.
Washburn Rural's girls basketball team poses for a team picture after winning its second Class 6A state championship since 2019 Saturday in Wichita. [Submitted]
DeLeye, a 6-foot-2 forward who has committed to play volleyball at Kentucky, had 13 points and 10 rebounds.
“She has had a look,” Washburn Rural coach Kevin Bordewick said. “I just knew. She’s a volleyball player, and we run 41 (wins) in a row and didn’t show up on championship Saturday. She is still feeling that, and I think it showed up today.
“There’s an inner fire in her. I’m really proud of how they all competed, but I thought she really had some grit in her.”
It wasn’t just DeLeye who was focused on winning, though.
“It’s the same group we had from last year,” Bordewick said. “We didn’t make it to the state tournament because we met up with (Topeka High), and they bounced us bad. We worked on that mentality a little bit over the summer – we’re not going to be denied no matter what this year.”
But there was some concern that DeLeye wouldn’t be able to play at the state tournament after she injured her knee during sub-state.
“We thought it was a bone bruise; we still don’t know for sure,” DeLeye said.
She chose not to get the knee checked out, but she did wear a brace.
“I want to play in the state championship with my girls,” she said.
She went down briefly in the second half and was out of the game for less than a minute. She wasn’t worried, though, because it wasn’t her knee.
“I kind of got dead legged,” she said. “I told coach, 'I’m good, I’m good.' I went back in there and still fought hard.''
DeLeye played a key role in the win, working to contain Derby junior Addy Brown, a highly recruited forward, who has narrowed her choices to Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU and Texas Tech.
Brown scored Derby’s first six points and led the Panthers with 11 points and eight rebounds.
“She’s an unbelievable player,” DeLeye said of Brown, who was sick when Washburn Rural beat Derby at the midseason tournament. “(Bordewick) gave me the confidence that I was going to guard her, and I just took up that challenge.”
Brown struggled offensively, shooting 5 of 14 from the field, including 1 of 6 from 3-point range.
Derby shot 9 of 42 as a team, 1 of 11 from three.
“When we were good, we were really good,” Derby coach Dan Harrison said. “There were 4-5 possessions where it looked like we didn’t know what we were doing. I think it got in our heads.
“We took good shots and missed them, (started) pressing a little more. It propagated itself.”
It didn’t help Derby that Washburn Rural limited its own mistakes, while also playing stellar defense.
“Our coach always says we can hang our hat on man-to-man defense,” sophomore guard Zoe Canfield said. “And I thought that was really true today. We’ve run man-to-man almost the whole year, and I think we really focused on doing our part.”
Harrison added: “We’d get a run, get a stop and then go down on a fastbreak and we’d throw it away.… There seemed to be someone in our way the entire time. If it wasn’t a perfect pass, it was tipped.”
Holding Derby to 23 points – four in the fourth quarter – is impressive. The Junior Blues held Derby scoreless for the final 6:08 of the first quarter, and then had a 16-3 run over 5:12 in the third quarter.
“I thought defensively we clamped down pretty good,” Bordewick said. “We had a few slip-ups; I thought the kids made corrections on those. We covered up the pick and roll, we kind of doubled down on Addy a little bit better. Then we had rotation over when she thought she had a dump down.
“I thought we challenged shooters and ran them off the 3-point line if we thought they could shoot it well.”
During the final moments of the game, Bordewick hugged each of his players on the bench, then the players raced to hug each other on the court when the final buzzer sounded.
“We’ve been working the whole season for this, our whole lives, quite frankly,” Canfield said. “This is what you dream of when you’re little. To see it all come together and the way that we played today, it was amazing.”
WASHBURN RURAL GIRLS 40, DERBY 23
Derby 4 6 9 4 – 23
Washburn Rural 8 7 18 7 – 40
Derby (23-2) -- Hopson 0-3 0-0 0, Archer 1-6 2-2 4, Brown 5-14 0-0 11, White 2-3 0-2 4, Boettjer 1-5 0-0 2, Smith 0-1 2-2 2, Yager 0-0 0-0 0, Karel 0-0 0-0 0, Wilson 0-0 0-0 0, Boyer 0-0 0-0 0, Demel 0-0 0-0 0, Smith 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 9-42 4-6 23.
Washburn Rural (23-2) -- Lutz 1-5 2-2 5, Krueger 1-6 1-5 3, Canfield 4-7 2-2 12, Ingram 2-5 0-1 5, DeLeye 5-13 3-5 13, Bagshaw 1-1 1-2 3, Carlgren 0-0 0-0 0, Brogan 0-3 0-0 0, Whitmore 0-0 0-0 0, Schuler 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 14-40 9-17 40.
3-point shots -- Washburn Rural 3-11 (Lutz 1-4, Canfield 2-4, DeLeye 0-3), Derby 1-11 (Brown 1-6, White 0-2, Boettjer 0-2, Hopson 0-1). Total fouls -- Washburn Rural 8, Derby 15.
