With the end of the basketball regular season and the end of February comes a new high pressured environment known as the post season. Starting on March third we will get to see both the Wilsonville girls and boys teams attempt to make a run at state titles, here is all you need to know about the squads, opponents, and context to get you ready for playoff season.

The girls team, who is entering the playoff bracket ranked #12, will take on the #5 ranked Crater Comets. The girls come into the first round matchup with a 13-12 overall record and will no doubt be the underdogs against the Comets. However that doesn’t seem to matter to Wilsonville, an underdog mentality seems to be what the Wildcats have embraced. As senior faith Nashif put it, “We have nothing to lose, we really need to be ready if we come together and scrap together we will play our best.”

Nashif was also asked if this first round playoff matchup had a daunting feeling of being her last and she replied “It’s not as scary as it is sad, it’s really sad but at the same time it’s motivating me to play really hard so I know I left on a good note.”

The girls will travel to Crater on Friday night and try to pull off the upset starting, at 6PM.

The boys, as the reigning state champs, are entering the tournament as a 3 seed and with a legit shot to go back to back. We have seen some cracks in this Wildcat squad we haven’t seen in some time. This year was the first year that Wilsonville lost a league game in 8 years– not only did they lose a league game, Wilsonville dropped 3 league games in disappointing fashion.

The boys finished the regular season with an impressive 20-5 record and have shown the ability to make playoff run after playoff run as Wilsonville has taken part in the last six 5A state championship games, Wilsonville has come out on top in 4 out of those 6 contests. What we have seen in the last decade from these Chris Roche teams is to never count them out in March.

Wilsonville’s first round matchup will be at home on Saturday as they take on the West Albany Bulldogs, the Bulldogs own a 16-9 record as the regular season closes. With Wilsonville being the heavy favorites, Kallen Gutridge made it clear that the Wildcats have all their attention on West Albany “We are focused on one day at a time. We aren’t making the tournament if we don’t beat West Albany we are only focused on giving a great effort on Saturday.”

Wilsonville will take on the Bulldogs at 7PM on Saturday, it should be a fun post season for both the boys and girls as they both continue on the ultimate goal that started in December to raise a state championship trophy in March.