They were three basketball standouts at three Snohomish County high schools. Their paths crossed occasionally on the court, but otherwise they barely knew each other.
But they ended up together at Santa Clara University and these onetime rivals — junior guard-forward Katie Hawkins from Snohomish’s Glacier Peak High School, redshirt freshman forward Beth Carlson from Everett’s Archbishop Murphy High School and freshman guard Sidney Rielly from Everett High School — are today teammates.
Not only that, they are now good friends.
“We were all familiar with each other before, but it was not like we were hanging out outside of basketball,” Carlson said. “But when we finally met (at Santa Clara), it’s not like we had to introduce ourselves. We all kind of knew who each other were.”
Given their histories as opponents, those first meetings were “a little bit awkward,” she admitted. “But it’s actually been really fun getting to know them. We all have this Seattle bond, we all know a lot of the same people and now we’re all really close.”
“It’s great now,” agreed Rielly. “They’re great teammates.”
Hawkins, Carlson and Rielly were all recruited by former Santa Clara coach Jennifer Mountain, whose contract was not renewed after last season (she is now an assistant at Portland State). She was replaced by JR Payne, the previous coach at Southern Utah, who was hired in April.
“I’m sure (Mountain) knew a lot of the players in the Northwest and that there’s a lot of great girls basketball talent in that area,” Payne said.
Indeed, the Broncos already have a commitment from another Snohomish County product, guard Savanna Hanson of Edmonds, a senior at King’s High School.
The city of Santa Clara, California, is just outside of San Jose and about 25 miles south of San Francisco. The university, a private Jesuit institution with an undergraduate enrollment of about 5,500 students, competes in the West Coast Conference, so Northwest schools Gonzaga and Portland are league rivals.
“It’s a great location with perfect weather,” Hawkins said. “But what really made me want to come here was just the girls on the team. I got along with them perfectly, and I knew right away that this where I wanted to be. Everything was like a perfect fit.”
During Rielly’s junior year at Everett, “the (Santa Clara) coaches were recruiting me pretty hard, so I wanted to come down and check it out,” she said. “I’d always thought I wanted to go to a bigger school, but when I got to Santa Clara. … I really liked the fact that I could walk around and see people I know, even though you’re always meeting new people, too. And the small class sizes were really important to me. All my professors know my name.”
“It’s a very open and friendly (campus) community,” Carlson added. “It’s kind of like a family. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it’s true.”
Of course, Santa Clara is also close to San Francisco, so not everyone is pro-Seattle. Last January, after the Seattle Seahawks defeated the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game, Hawkins boldly wore the jersey of Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman on campus.
“I got food thrown at me in the cafeteria,” Hawkins said. “It was like a piece of an orange.”
Such occasional indignities aside, all three are delighted with their college choice. The school feels right and the basketball is also going well. Carlson is a starter with Hawkins and Rielly playing from the bench, but all three are averaging around 15 minutes a game.
“Sidney is a great shooter,” Payne said. “She has the ultimate green light, and if she’s on balance and has the ball in her hands … we expect her to shoot it. We need Beth to be able to score inside as well as give us great rebounding on both ends of the court. And Katie is a real versatile player who can play (both guard and both forward positions).
“We’re very, very young,” she added. “Most of our roster hasn’t played much in collegiate games, so it’s going to take a while to find our rhythm. But I love our scrappiness, our desire and the way we play. We play extremely hard.”
Payne has her own roots in the Pacific Northwest. She was raised in Vancouver, B.C., and was previously an assistant coach at Gonzaga and Boise State.
For that reason, plus the region’s abundance of talent, “we’re going to continue to recruit that area,” Payne said. “There are high school and club coaches that are doing a great job there, so it makes sense for us to continue to try to find those kids if we can.”
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