The season may have gotten off to a slow start, but Wilsonville High School girls basketball has been on a roll the past few weeks.
Behind 21 points from freshman Gabriella Moultrie, the Wildcats easily raced past Hillsboro 59-26 on Tuesday night, Jan. 17, to improve to 5-0 in Northwest Oregon Conference play. Grace Wilson added 12 points in the win, while Audrey Counts chipped in another 10 in support.
It was a stellar all-around performance for Wilsonville (7-9, 5-0), which came into the week ranked No. 7 in the OSAA Today Class 5A coaches’ poll. After coming into the season ranked No. 3 in the preseason poll, the Wildcats quickly fell out after a string of losses to open the 2022-23 campaign.
“We talked to the kids about expectations and goals, and they’ve responded better than we ever could have hoped,” said Wilsonville head coach Justin Duke after Tuesday’s win. “Really proud of them and how they’ve stuck together, and it’s obviously paying off now.”
After Wilsonville started the season with a 2-8 record, this recent run of form might seem surprising. Looking more closely at those eight losses, however, it becomes clear that head coach Justin Duke wanted to give his team a big challenge early in the season.
Six of the Wildcats’ early losses came against top teams in the latest OSAA Today 6A coaches’ poll. That nonleague run included games against No. 1 Clackamas, No. 2 Jesuit, No. 4 South Medford and No. 7 Tualatin. There were also two losses to Sheldon, which only recently fell out of the Class 6A top 10. The other two in-state defeats came at the hands of top-tier Class 5A opponents, including No. 1 Springfield and No. 4 South Albany.
Put simply, there haven’t been many easy games on the docket.
“We have a really young group, and we’ve been impacted by some pretty big injuries early on,” Duke said after Tuesday night’s victory. “It forced us to play some kids that didn’t have a lot of varsity experience, but I think it made us stronger going into league.”
It has been a baptism by fire of sorts, especially for a team as young as Duke’s is. The upperclassmen on the team include just one senior and three juniors, while the other seven varsity players are either sophomores or freshmen.
Duke added: “It was tough along the way, but the kids have really shown some grit and determination, and we’re in a good spot now.”
One of those ninth-graders, Moultrie, has burst onto the scene during her first high school season.
Moultrie’s 21-point outing against Hillsboro merely scratched the surface of what the first-year Wildcat is capable of accomplishing. Earlier in the year, she scored 44 points in the loss to South Albany, the second-most by a freshman in state history. A few games later, Moultrie posted a triple-double in a Jan. 9 win over Milwaukie, finishing with 28 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds.
28, 10 and 10 for @GabiMoultrie And she’s a freshman! @CoachJDuke pic.twitter.com/pICOGZFnfv
— Olivia Moultrie (@olivia_moultrie) January 10, 2023
The freshman phenom may catch some teams off guard, but Duke is not surprised by what he has seen from Moultrie in her first season.
“We got an opportunity to coach her in eighth grade, and then the summer league with her in June, so we knew what the expectations were and what she could bring to the team,” Duke said of the standout guard.
The other freshman on the squad, Fareeda ElManhawy has provided crucial play in the post for Wilsonville, while sophomores like Counts, Jadyn Kipe, Reese Holsey also been important contributors. Throw in a dash of veteran presence from juniors such as Lily Scanlan and Grace Wilson, plus the team's only senior, Faith Nashif, and the resulting mixture should be a formula for success — now, and in the future.
“It’s nice to have a young team with some great pieces to build around,” Duke added. “It’s a great time right now.”
Now, thanks to a grueling nonleague gauntlet, Duke’s young, battle-tested team is surging in the NWOC. There are still potential pitfalls in league play, to be sure, but this Wilsonville team has not stumbled into any of them so far.
In the first taste of league action on Dec. 14, Wilsonville grabbed its first win of the year in a 76-21 romp over Parkrose. Later, when the NWOC campaign resumed after New Year’s Day, the Wildcats got right back to work in knocking off Putnam in a 72-55 win. The next week, they crushed Milwaukie and Hood River Valley in back-to-back games, winning those two contests by a combined 67 points.
Following Tuesday’s win over Hillsboro, Wilsonville has now beaten its first five league opponents by an average margin of 34.4 points per game. While those gawdy score lines surely stick out, it is worth noting that the Wildcats have played the NWOC’s four lowest-ranked teams in the early going.
The next test will be how Wilsonville performs over the coming weeks.
The Wildcats soon enter the trickiest part of their league season, which includes dates with La Salle Prep (11-4, 4-1) and Canby (10-3, 2-2) in its next two games, as well as a Feb. 3 rematch with Putnam (10-3, 4-1). Wilsonville’s next opponent, La Salle, continued its own recent surge with a 47-37 home win over Canby on Tuesday night.
Tipoff between the Wildcats and Falcons is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 20, at La Salle Catholic College Prep in Milwaukie.