2024 ALL-AREA GIRLS BASKETBALL

PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Kendra Kitchen, Davis

1ST TEAM | 2ND TEAM | 3RD TEAM| HMs

Photo supplied, Aaron Dooley

Box Elder High School’s girls basketball team went 8-15 overall and 2-8 in Region 5 one year ago, with their only region triumphs coming against a Bonneville squad that was 0-10.

But the Bees entered the 2023-24 school year with a buzz about how things might go. Their seniors, scattered through various minutes of varsity or sub-varsity play in recent years, were reuniting as a group for one final campaign, including several who have played together since elementary school.

“We talked a lot about how this would be our last time playing together, since we’ve been playing together for so long,” senior Madi Thurgood said. “I remember back when we were probably in eighth grade, we won our little league and … all said that would be something we would do in high school. We aimed for that goal and knew this is our last opportunity to achieve something like that. This is a year we can work together and do good things for Box Elder.”

The Bees weren’t unseating Bountiful as region and state champions this season, but that’s hardly a mark against Box Elder — nobody else was doing that, either.

What Box Elder did do was plenty noteworthy for the old Brigham City school. The Bees advanced to the state tournament semifinals for only the third time in at least the last 35 years while totaling 20 wins for only the second time in at least as long.

Photo supplied, Aaron Dooley

For that, Box Elder is the 2024 Standard-Examiner All-Area Girls Basketball Team of the Year.

“Our success this year has everything to do with this group of girls and just how great of teammates they were for each other,” head coach Aaron Dooley said. “They were super competitive, and they were competing together.

“We talk about decisions over outcomes and … they just kept making the right basketball play.”

With excitement among the team’s six seniors, the Bees started to believe after a trip to Florida. A 2-2 start that included a loss to 6A Syracuse (who went 8-2 in Region 1) grew to 5-2 with wins in Florida over teams from California, Pennsylvania and New York, one of which came with a basket in the final seconds.

“Spending that time together, it got us really prepared for the season and helped us know we could compete in region and even in the state,” Thurgood said. “It gave us a positive mindset going into the rest of the season.”

Photo supplied, Aaron Dooley

Box Elder went 15-4 the rest of the way, with three of those losses coming to eventual repeat double-champion Bountiful.

Against everyone else, the Bees’ defensive swarm was where it all started. Averaging 17 steals per contest, Box Elder loosened up easy transition points week after week with its relentless pressure and position in passing lanes. Against a previous single-season program record of 75 steals by one player, senior Kaydence Barber totaled 121 steals and Thurgood had 118.

“A lot of it was an attitude, and a lot of that was we knew we played our best on the fast break,” senior Ashlyn Wight said. “The game came easier to us and it was an attitude to get after the other team.”

That led to a balanced offensive attack, one that saw seven different players finish games as the team’s leading scorer. That especially helped when leading scorer Wight suffered a turf toe injury just before senior night — a particularly painful problem for those who have experienced it, and one where rest is the prescription.

So to open the playoffs, while Wight played fewer minutes than usual, Barber grabbed eight steals and scored 13 points in a 54-32 win over Northridge (she averaged seven steals per game in the postseason).

That game saw a raucous, packed student section in a fairly full Box Elder gym, and, in a tournament where students visibly did not support some girls teams, Wight said she appreciated the big packs of students and those from the community who traveled to the rest of the playoffs at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Center.

“It was really cool for everyone to come out, they were so loud and it made the playoff games so great and so intense,” Wight said. “I don’t know if we had more numbers-wise (than other schools) but they were definitely louder.”

In the quarterfinals, Kamri Andersen helped book the Bees to the semifinals with 17 points while Thurgood racked up 12 rebounds and seven steals to beat Olympus 59-55.

In the semifinals, Wight emerged with 20 points for a feisty effort that gave Box Elder a halftime lead over Bountiful, then saw a Bees rally run out of gas in a 61-53 loss.

Thurgood, senior Olivia Godfrey and junior Jocelyn Vranes also tallied totals as leading scorers throughout the season.

“Teams couldn’t be like, ‘We’re going to take away this girl or we’re going to take away that,'” Dooley said. “And it wasn’t like we were saying ‘get the ball to this girl’ or ‘get into this action.’ We were just playing basketball.

“We always talk about the strength of the bee is the hive and the strength of the hive is the bee. So the girls were just there for each other, had each other’s backs and just played for each other.”

Wight said a change in practice helped key the balance and competitiveness on both ends of the court.

“A lot of teams practice varsity against JV but this year we practiced varsity against varsity and mixed up junior varsity on each team,” Wight said. “So I’d be going against Kaydence and other really good defenders on our team … that helped us really push each other.”

Reaching 20 wins and the state semis with a familiar core of girls made the experience extra special.

“It is special. We don’t get move-ins. I don’t even know how you would handle a move-in,” Dooley said. “I think it’s a testament of what you can do when you band together and just compete, and go out there and want to do things for your team. The difference between an average team and a great team is just great teammates.

“These girls proved that as long as you’re working together, you can take on super, super talented opponents. I don’t think we had the most talented basketball players, but we did have really good athletes and girls who were really in it for each other.”

Newsletter