Owyhee’s state title hopes were slipping away. Then its senior point guard went to work
Owyhee needed a hero Friday. And Josie Davis donned the cape.
The senior point guard scored 15 of her team-high 20 points in the fourth quarter and overtime, carrying the Storm to a 61-58 win over Coeur d’Alene in the 6A girls basketball state semifinals and sending Owyhee to the finals for the first time in program history.
The No. 1-ranked Storm (24-2) will face No. 2 Boise (23-3) in the championship at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.
Owyhee rarely relies on hero ball. Instead, the Storm spread the ball around the floor, relying on their balance to spend the entire season as the state’s top-ranked team.
[Related: Boise rallies past Madison | State tournament scoreboard | Scouting reports on all 48 teams]
But locked in a battle with Coeur d’Alene’s prolific Brookeslee Colvin and with Owyhee’s 3-point shots not falling, the Storm needed a new formula. And Davis provided it.
‘I was like, ‘This could be the last two minutes of our season. We just need to go all out,’” Owyhee senior Riley Beck said. “Josie just took that and went all out — and saved us.”
Owyhee trailed by seven points midway through the fourth before Davis started cooking. She scored eight of her team’s final 10 points in regulation, putting the ball on the floor and finding seams in the Vikings’ defense.
Her 8-foot jumper with 35 seconds left sent the game to overtime, and she didn’t slow down in the extra period. She racked up seven of her team’s nine points and forced Colvin to foul out with 26.3 seconds left after the two tangled for a rebound.
Davis entered the tournament as Owyhee’s third-leading scorer (9.7 ppg). She spent her four-year career as a point guard more focused on making sure her teammates got open shots than creating them for herself. But as Colvin erupted for 36 points and sank nearly every shot she took (11-for-16), Davis realized Owyhee needed a counterweight.
“Riley said it a couple times, ‘No regrets,’” Davis said. “That just stuck in my head.”
Owyhee coach George Rodriguez said Davis always had an afternoon like this in her. But even he struggled to describe her performance.
“I’ll be honest, brother, I don’t really know,” he said. “It’s just a kick in the pants. Like, you can do it, you know? You’ve got to have that, ‘A-ha’ moment. We were looking for somebody to do that.”
Davis finished the afternoon 7-for-14 from the floor and 6-for-8 from the free-throw line. She also chipped in five rebounds and two assists.
Beck added 16 points and seven rebounds, and Addy Wright finished with nine points as a senior-loaded squad took the Storm to the highest stage of Idaho basketball.
Six of Owyhee’s seniors founded the Storm program four years ago when they made the team as freshmen. Owyhee suffered through the growing pains of a young program, slowly climbing its way up Idaho’s pecking order and suffering multiple setbacks along the way.
But Rodriguez said a young squad that often went wide-eyed in key moments showed it’s an unflappable veteran group as the Storm and two-time defending champs traded haymakers.
“We’ve kind of had a lot of haters this season,” Davis said. “So I think our thing is just to make a statement. This is our year, and we want to show people why we should be the ones winning this.”
Coeur d’Alene (17-8) junior Natalie Semprimoznik finished with 14 points as she and Colvin combined for 50 of the Vikings’ 58. Coeur d’Alene will battle Madison (17-9) for the third-place trophy at noon Saturday at Timberline.
This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 5:55 PM.
