SPOKANE — Roughly 10 minutes had come off the real time clock and Chris Bannish was still questioning the last eight game-time minutes of Saturday's Class 2B state title game.
The Adna High School girls basketball coach was already replaying what could have gone differently.
What if he burned his final timeout when McKenna Torrey was in trouble up three?
What if he made the decision to switch up the defense in the final possession of regulation up two?
What if senior star Karsyn Freeman doesn’t foul out in overtime?
So, is this naturally, the championship of what-ifs?
“It is and I hate that for them,” Bannish stated. “It is tough. I am a little lost on why it turned so bad, but it is no excuse.”
All of the things that could have gone against Adna did in the fourth quarter and overtime and it led to a 73-66 overtime heartbreaker to Northwest Christian in the final girls game of the 2024-25 campaign.
The fouls were 22 on Adna, 14 on the Crusaders. Freeman, McKenna Torrey and Danika Hallom – the three best ball-handling guards on the roster – all fouled out. And post Bailey Chapman finished with four fouls.
No one on NW Christian had more than three.
“The officiating and what they were calling kind of turned late,” Bannish said. “I don’t want to blame the stripes. I never got a feel for what they wanted in the fourth quarter.”
The key sequence came when the Pirates were up seven and succumbed to three straight turnovers. With one timeout still in his pocket, Bannish never called it.
He was hoping he wouldn’t need to. The Pirates were handling the Crusaders’ press well enough, but down the stretch, it affected the entry and secondary passes.
Add in the no-calls on Kendall Humphrey and Torrey in that sequence and it spiraled out of control.
“We just got a lot of fouls called on us,” Torrey said.
“Things happen,” Freeman added.
Next year will look vastly different for the Pirates. Torrey and Chapman will be the anchors for the 2025-26 version of Adna. Bannish mentioned having a lot of confidence in Alyssa Carroll and Ava Humphrey being able to step into the starting lineup.
The depth behind that will have to be relied on by underclassmen.
“I feel for them more than anything, it sucks,” Bannish said. “If that atmosphere right there doesn’t fuel you to want to put time in, you’re not made for this.”
And Torrey believes the extra work will be the standard, not the exception.
“We’ll do our best and work hard,” she said.
