Atwater High girls capture first basketball section championship since 1988
The morning started with the Atwater High girls basketball team being treated like royalty with a grand send-off as they left town with an escort that included police cars, fire engines and a helicopter.
By nightfall the No. 2 seeded Falcons returned home champions, capturing their first section title since 1988 with a convincing 65-49 victory over top-seeded Christian Brothers at the Golden One Center on Thursday night in Sacramento.
“It’s something that we’ve dreamed of for a long time,” said Atwater senior Karissa Hukill. “It’s just so surreal, we’ve been talking about this forever, and we finally did it. We’ve been speaking it into existence for so long, and it happened.”
The police escort took them around town with people lining the streets with signs and wishing the team luck.
“There were elementary students waving to us,” said Atwater senior Cami Gibson.
The Atwater faithful then took over the Sacramento Kings home arena as three buses full of students, cheerleaders and band members — all wearing blue shirts — piled into the Atwater section.
There were hundreds of other staff, parents and fans who also made the two-hour trip to Sacramento.
“I would say that having our community come out like was really special,” Hukill said. “I will remember that, we will all remember that for the rest of our lives. It kind of set us up to like, we want to bring this home to Atwater. It’s a testament to not only all the hard work we put in, but to also girls basketball.”
Atwater (27-5) dictated play from the start with its frenzied, full-court press that never let up.
Atwater jumped out to a 14-4 lead midway through the first quarter, forcing Christian Brothers (25-7) to call a timeout to regroup.
Atwater never trailed the rest of the way.
Hukill was everywhere in an all-around performance that saw her score 20 points with nine rebounds, seven steals and five assists.
Gibson controlled the paint and flirted with her second triple-double this season, finishing with eight points, 15 rebounds and nine blocked shots.
“When (Gibson) is in there, she does her job, and that’s part of our our team” said Atwater coach JR Davis, whose team will move on to the state playoffs next week. “She’s part of the puzzle that we’ve built and put together over these last couple of years.”
When Christian Brothers cut the Atwater lead to just 31-30 early in the third quarter, Atwater responded with a 12-2 run to stretch the lead back to 41-32 with 3:10 left in the quarter.
There’s a trust built over time this Atwater team has with each other.
“We’re the same team we had last year, we got to build a lot of bonds over the summer, the workouts we have, our trips together,” said senior Jolie Hart. “We’re not just a team, we’re a family.”
Finally bringing home that elusive blue section banner made the journey so worth it.
“Once you get to the top of the mountain, you really get to look back on what it took to get there,” Gibson said. “You think it might have been worth it to see this view. This view is pretty nice.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 9:07 PM.
