By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– On the heels of surpassing 1,500 career points about a week-and-a-half ago, Sprague’s Carly Skogstad added to her High School Basketball resume one more thing:
The All-Time Scorer in Olympian Girls Basketball history
The previous record was 1,525 points. Skogstad passed it in the first half, scoring 12 of her 26 points in the opening 16 minutes to become the program’s all-time leading scorer. And the thing was, she didn’t know she broke the record until she checked out of the game in the final minute. It was as she was heading to the bench when the scorer’s table announced that she broke the record and she was swarmed by her teammates, who congratulated her.
All this coming on her Senior Night. On her final home game as an Olympian.
“It is insane. I had no idea and I just broke 1,500 point, so that was already a big ‘wow’ factor. I thought the first-place girl was way ahead of me, I didn’t really think I had a chance,” starts Skogstad. “So for them to announce that and my teammates jumping around, it was really a special moment and probably my favorite being here.
“This year has definitely been my favorite and it’s been really special. I love our coach, Rodney Nelson, he always pushes us to work hard all the time and every day at practice. He never lets anyone slack off. It’s very special for all of us Seniors. We’ve been playing together for so long and we worked really hard this year to get to where we’re at.”
In the opening half of the game, against West Salem, Sprague hung around. For a brief moment, they led the Titans 24-22 before West Salem took a 30-24 lead into the halftime break before the Titans pulled away for the 70-44 victory to close out the regular season on Friday night.
And despite the tough defeat, Sprague knows that this tough league season and their season as a whole, has set them up for hopefully a strong playoff run. The Olympians, who clinched the third and final Automatic Qualifier out of the Central Valley Conference, will enter the postseason 10-11 on the year.
“We’ve been close to some good teams, it showed us that we have that potential, but we just gotta get that whole game together and I think we can do it. We just got to hone in that second half and keep that energy up,” said Skogstad.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
