Spilyay Sports
Pqcje6 Spilyqy Tymoo Jwqi-y 20, 2005
Suppah hopes to repeat win at state
By Brian Mortenscn
Spiljiiy Tymoo
Jaylyn Suppjh said the 2002
03 season, in which her Madras
White Buffaloes won the Or
egon Class 3A girls basketball
championship, was mostly fun,
sometimes stressful, but 100
percent basketball.
She'd be happy to do it all
over again during her senior
year.
Suppah, a senior forward and
one of the Buffs' co-team cap
tains along with senior guard
Raylene Thomas, is one of the
last links to Madras' last state
championship, when the Buffs
won the Tri-Vallcy League title
and swept through the Class 3A
championship bracket, ending
with a win over Burns for the
state title.
"I'd do it every year," she
said.
A two-year starter at forward
(she also started some games as
a sophomore in '02-03), Suppah
will have a lot to say about
whether the White Buffaloes
return to the state playoffs af
ter last year's absence, as a se
nior and as a team captain.
The Buffaloes finally playing
at full capacity, after a brief
stretch earlier this month when
they were missing players, coin
ciding with a stretch in which
they lost seven out of nine
games following a 3-1 start,
Suppah, who averages 10.0 the right direction."
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play well enough to catch a col
lege coach's eye and hopefully
earn a basketball scholarship.
"If not then, I'll probably go
to school, probably Portland
State or Chemcketa (Commu
nity College in Salem)," she said.
"I want to go school for a while,
but I'm not 100 percent sure
yet."
She's not certain about school
in Oregon because, as she says,
her future could include an in-,
tcrnational experience.
"Either this summer or next
summer, I want to go to Italy
and go to school there or just
go over there to work for a
while," she said. "I've always just
liked Italy, and it's just some
place I want to go. And if I get
a chance, I want to try to play.
"If I don't get a scholarship
here, I want to try to play over
there."
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Jaylyn Suppah averages 1 0 points a game in her senior year.
bound, and you outlet, and on
the other end and we score,
that's probably the funnest
time," she said.
"She keeps us together. She
has a lot of ability to keep team
together when we're out of sorts
defensively," Madras coach
Bruce Reece said of Suppah.
"She keeps everybody going in
points per game said she thinks
the team will be ready to make
a move in the Tri-Valley League.
Suppah has scored 35 points
in the Buffs' last two games.
When the Buffaloes started
league play at Sherwood, they
had only seven players available,
with one suspended due to poor
grades, one having just returned
from a Hawaiian vacation over
the holiday break and one gone
to a family funeral. Six players
played the bulk of the minutes
in a 17-point loss to the Bow
men. The team rebounded with
a four-point home win over
Valley Catholic three nights later.
The Buffs were 2-2 in Tri Val
ley play pending their game
against LaSalle Tuesday.
"I feel confident that once
everybody gets back into it and
we have all our players back, I
think we'll be able to (compete),"
she said. "Because in practice it's
kind of hard to go hard if you
don't have all your players there,
and so I think that was kind of
part of it, but I think once
everybody's back into things,
we'll get back into it and our
games will start going the (right)
direction rather than the other
direction."
Suppah said she comes from
what she calls a "basketball fam
ily." Growing up on the Warm
Springs reservation, she origi
nally learned to play the game,
she said from her grandfather,
and her uncle coached a team
of nine and 10-year-olds.
"His daughters were a couple
years older than me, and I would
go practice with them," she said.
Suppah, at 5-8, is a gritty
rebounder who can also handle
the ball and shoot from outside.
Her favorite part of the
game, though, along with re
bounding, is running the fast
break.
"When you get a fast re-
Suppah became a starter for
the Madras varsity her sopho
more year, playing for a team
that had placed at state the pre
vious two seasons, including a
second-place finish in 2001 be
fore she ran into an old nemesis
, about midway through the sea
' son - her knees. jj
"I've always had bad knees,
and it got really bad that year,"
she said. "I had to get (special)
soles made for me."
When she was able to come
back following a two-week ab
sence, Suppah was the first
player off the bench as the
White Buffaloes reached the
state tournament.
It was at that tournament
Suppah said she had her best
game as a high school player, in
the second-round game against
LaGrande.
"I did everything right," she
said. "I didn't score a whole lot,
but my defense was pretty good
that night.
"People told me a lot of
things about how I did and they
said it was one of the best
games I had."
After that 54-36 Madras win,
the White Buffaloes went on to
beat Pleasant Hill, Tillamook,
and finally Burns to win the state
championship, finishing off a xx
x season and their second state
championship in girls basketball.
"I still can't describe it,"
Suppah said of that enchanted
season. "It was exciting, some
times low. We had
problemsDevery team has
problems, but it was probably
mostly fun and serious
"It took a lot of time and
effort. It was like basketball, 24
7."
Having such a huge part of
a state championship carries a
certain cache, particularly with
a young team, particularly one
that has only three returning
players from last season. Her
experience on varsity and sta
tus as one of five seniors helped
make her a co-captain, as she
and Thomas, a 5-7 senior for
ward, were voted as co-captains
by their teammates, Reece said.
"We're young. We don't have
that much experience," she said.
"We have three players that
were on varsity last year, and3
and so it's a little difficult.
"I think some of those girls
don't have confidence in them
selves enough. But I really like
this group. I think we can go a
longways." (
Best of all.iihe said, her
knees feel as goVl as they ever
have this .season. !;::.':;:,
"She's fun to be around and
she has a good sense of humor,"
Reece said. "That's helpful, when
you're coaching a bunch of
girls."
Suppah said she hoping to
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