With a 1,000-point scorer and 19 straight wins, Middleton is ‘so in it for each other’
With 19 straight wins by an average of more than 40 points per game, practices can sometimes be harder than games for the Middleton High girls basketball team.
Maybe that’s why the Vikings never looked rattled under the lights Wednesday night at Idaho Central Arena.
Middleton held Bishop Kelly to just 10 points in the second half — including a scoreless fourth quarter — to turn a two-point advantage at halftime into a 57-30 victory in the 5A District Three Tournament championship game.
Both the Vikings (23-1) and Knights (17-7) will represent the 5A SIC at the state tournament, which runs Feb. 20-22 at Mountain View High in Meridian. Emmett (13-12) could also advance via a play-in game Saturday. First-round pairings will be determined Sunday by the final MaxPreps rankings.
“We knew that they were gonna come out strong and it was gonna be a close game, so we had to pull it together,” said guard Elsie Wyatt, Middleton’s lone senior. “I feel like we did that. We just set a high standard for ourselves, and our practices are usually harder than our games.
“We work really, really hard at practices, and it just seems easy during the games.”
Middleton has spent the last six weeks as the No. 1 team in the state media poll, leading the 5A classification in points per game (69) and points allowed (26.4). The Vikings’ only loss this season came Dec. 10 to Owyhee, the top-ranked team in 6A.
Wednesday was the first district title for second-year coach Marianne Blackwell — who has daughters Zoey and Olivia on her roster — but it is the 10th overall for the Middleton program since 2009.
“I’ve been working with them since they were little and dreaming of those moments,” Blackwell said of her team. “It’s the excitement for each other, and that’s what I love. I think that’s what keeps them so motivated, because they are so in it for each other.”
Even before the final buzzer sounded, the Vikings found reason to celebrate one of their own. Junior guard Zoey Blackwell sank a 3-pointer with just under 4 minutes to play in the fourth quarter, giving her 12 points in the game and simultaneously surpassing 1,000 career points.
“It was really cool. I was definitely trying to get her those points all night,” Wyatt said. “I knew she had a goal, so I was trying to help her out with that.”
While they’ve scored as many as 94 points in a game this season, the Vikings have also been astonishingly stingy on the defensive end, including limiting opponents to totals like 6, 11, 9 and 12.
“I’ve believed it since the day I started: defense wins championships,” Marianne Blackwell said. “You can’t predicate the offense. You don’t know if it’s gonna go in, but you know what you can do on the defensive side. … When you work on the defense, the offense will come.”
In addition to the 12 points, Zoey Blackwell contributed eight rebounds, five assists and five steals. Wyatt totaled 11 points, seven rebounds and two steals, and junior Aysha Fried added a double-double of 10 points and 11 boards.
Seniors Mary Behrend and Abby Swan each scored 10 points to lead Bishop Kelly.
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 10:17 PM.
