Prep girls basketball: Guard ties career high to ignite Adna by Toutle Lake

By Zach Martin / zach@chronline.com
Posted 1/21/25

ADNA — Around the midpoint of the regular season, Adna High School girls basketball coach Chris Bannish will have one-on-one meetings with his players. Conversations are built around how …

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Prep girls basketball: Guard ties career high to ignite Adna by Toutle Lake

Posted

ADNA — Around the midpoint of the regular season, Adna High School girls basketball coach Chris Bannish will have one-on-one meetings with his players. Conversations are built around how players have progressed from last season to now and where they’ll be by the end of the season.

For Gaby Guard, it was a heartfelt talk on getting her scoring back up. Then a two-hour gym session with Bannish and assistant coach Casey Dotson followed.

“My biggest thing all season has been confidence,” Guard said. “I haven’t found my shot early. I needed extra time.”

The senior was nearly unguardable on Tuesday night.

Guard launched seven 3-pointers, at least two in three of the four quarters, and tying her career high with 27 points was more than enough to aid the Pirates a 73-47 statement win over Toutle Lake in a C2BL contest at Adna High School.

Whether it was from the corner late in the first or the wing in the second, Guard was able to get to her spot routinely. She canned open and contested shots, was the point person on Adna’s full-court press and came away with a couple of steals.

“She chose to dig deep,” Bannish said. “It is paying off. She knows she needs to score for us and I think you're seeing her more relaxed.”

Throughout the workout, her goal was to get her confidence back. A domino effect from losing strength between the ears made her mechanics falter.

Now, after back-to-back 20-plus point performances, Guard feels as good as she’s ever felt with her shot.

“That kick-started it,” she said. “Finally getting that going feels really good.”

Adna (14-1, 4-0 C2BL) used runs of 8-0 and 11-0 to take control of the opening half and lead by 23. Most of the damage was done by its dribble-drive and kick out offense that sprung Danika Hallom and McKenna Torrey free.

Those two each registered 12 points while Kendall Humphrey chipped in 11.

All of the production came with star Karsyn Freeman limited. She started the game and played at “half-speed” per Bannish.

Even without her notching a point, the Pirates didn’t miss a beat.

“The rest of the girls know they can play and we prepared like we weren’t going to have her,” Bannish said. “Says a lot about what we have. Going forward, we’ll have to execute those little things.”

Still, Toutle Lake (13-3, 2-2) refused to go away quietly.

It tallied the first eight points of the third and whittled the margin to 16 going into the fourth. Guard buried a triple, Torrey went on a personal 7-0 spree and Humphrey capped the 10-0 run to bring the lead back to 28.

The Ducks never got to within 20 points the remainder of the night.

“Kind of realize on our own and be like ‘Hey, we need to pick it up’ rather than waste a timeout,” Guard said.

Adna returns to the court on Thursday versus Toledo. With the district tournament almost two weeks away, the Pirates still believe there are things to fine-tune ahead of the postseason.

“We know where we stand and we have to push each other,” Bannish said. “Share the ball when open and passing and hitting people in the pocket. It is such a minute thing, but it is a big thing.”