By Makayla Sparks – For Whatcom Preps
LYNDEN – Almost a week after the state tournaments concluded, the stands at Lynden High School’s Jake Maberry Gymnasium had filled up again for another high school basketball event. The annual senior classic, this year called the John Clark Whatcom County Senior Classic, featured female and male seniors from all across the county in one last exclamation mark on the 2023-24 high school basketball season.
The girls took the court first, divided into city and county teams, and kicked the night off with a three-point contest.
Each contender was given 30 seconds to knock down as many threes as they could from their favorite spot on the count and at the end of the first round, Sehome’s Emmy Hart, Nooksack Valley’s Devin Coppinger, and Lynden’s Mallary Villars held the highest totals and moved on to the finals. Villars knocked down 11 of her shots in the final to take home the win.
Shortly afterward was the tip-off for the girls’ game which didn’t follow standard regulations. Each quarter was extended to 10 minutes, fouls were barely called, and shots were taken from near half-court at unusual frequency. With four minutes left in the game, the Elam Ending was put in place, meaning the target score which was eight points about the current leading score was set and the first time to reach it would be crowned the winner. The target score was set at 105 and a few minutes later, Nooksack Valley’s Lainey Kimball hit a deep three to reach the mark and hand the county team a 105-89 victory.
Not long after the girl’s game concluded, the boys took the court, also divided into city and county teams. They started their portion of the night with a high-flying dunk contest between Meridian’s Christian Clawson, LC’s Jeremiah Wright and Kayden Stuit, Lynden’s Anthony Canales, and Nooksack’s Joey Brown.
Each player was given 45 seconds to complete a dunk and went twice in the first round. The result was an LC vs LC final between Stuit and Wright, with Stuit edging out the win over his regular season teammate.
The boys also competed in a three-point contest, following the same 30 seconds from one-spot rules as the girls. In the final for the boys, were Meridian’s Taran Burks, Lynden’s Weston VanDalen, and Lynden Christian’s Dawson Bouma. Bouma’s winning performance in the final wouldn’t be the only impression he left on the crowd.
When gameplay started a few minutes later, Bouma dunked the first basket of the game and kicked off a collection of more than a handful of dunks scored in the game between both teams. At the end of the first quarter, Ferndale’s Bishop Ootsey hit a buzzer-beating half-court shot to keep the city team in front of the county team. However, when the Elam Ending came into effect at the end of the game the county held a more than 20-point lead. The target score was set at 104, and the county team reached it when Bouma decided to make one more statement on the evening, hitting a deep thirty-foot three to put the game away.
