One plays with a glare intense enough to bore holes in opponents’ skulls. The other giggles in the middle of games.
One intimidates her opponents. The other confuses them.
Bonneville High School’s Mailie Garner and Sugar-Salem High School’s Sofia Hepworth are opposites on the court with a few things in common: Both dominate everything they do.
Both are returning Idaho Statesman Players of the Year for basketball. And both hold the key to defending state basketball titles this winter. Garner’s Bonneville Bees return all but one starter from last year’s 26-2 team that won the 4A state crown.
Hepworth’s Sugar-Salem Diggers were a flawless 26-0 — and handed Bonneville its two losses — on the way to the 3A title. With six seniors lost to graduation, Hepworth will assume a greater leadership role as the Diggers shoot for their third title in four years.
Mailie Garner isn’t crazy.
Granted, the Bonneville senior does handstands before volleyball matches. Yes, she bursts into spontaneous dances late in close games. Sure, she easily hounds smaller point guards at the head of the Bonneville press, her bouncing pigtails combining with an unprovoked grin and wide eyes to a maniacal effect.
OK. Maybe Mailie Garner is crazy on the court. Just a little bit.
No one knows for sure what Garner is thinking as she slams home kills on the volleyball court, sinks 15-footers or sprints full-speed for basketballs bouncing out of bounds like a linebacker pursuing an end-around.
Well, maybe Garner knows.
“I love handstands,” Garner said. I’ve always loved handstands. I used to be a cheerleader. I didn’t love cheerleading. I just loved the handstand part. I just started doing that.”
Garner may have put the handstands to bed with the volleyball season, but basketball offers a new venue for her frolics, primarily because a net doesn’t sequester Garner from opponents.
One play, Garner might hop laterally from one foot to the other to the bafflement of the forward trying to box her out. When an opponent falls 30 feet away, Garner might sprint at full-tilt, her 6-foot frame and trademark pigtails hurtling toward a vulnerable victim, only to stop on a dime and help the player to her feet.
Teammates sing Garner’s praises, but opponents are less sure. Some see Garner as aloof or cocky. Her teammate, Kylee Searle, didn’t know what to expect when she transferred from Shelley last year.
“I thought she was … interesting,” Searle said. “I love Mailie now, but I’ll be honest. When I saw Mailie then, I didn’t know what to think.”
Garner could care less what opponents think. That would require caring about what anybody thinks.
“I’ve been called cocky because I like to have fun,” Garner said. “Maybe it does come across bad just because I’m relaxed. I’ve got weird looks from people. That stuff doesn’t bother me. I know what I have to do to have a good game. Sometimes I make people laugh, and that makes me happy.”
Considering Garner has three titles to her name, perhaps there’s a method to the madness. Her teammates say Garner’s acts of randomness help keep Bonneville loose, and her coaches say Garner’s antics steel her against pressure.
The bigger the stage, the better Garner plays. Garner led the Bees with 21 points in the last year’s state basketball title game, and she led the volleyball team with 13 kills and four blocks to help clinch the crown this fall.
Garner’s big-game heroics started when she was a sophomore in the volleyball title match against Sandpoint when she threw down — no typo — 31 kills to lead Bonneville to the championship.
“Sandpoint must have been in a timeout, thinking, ‘we’ve got no answer for that girl,’ Bonneville coach Chantal McMurtrey said. “And she’s over there, just dancing to herself.”
Despite her eccentricities, Garner’s game is a model of stability. She is, after all, the returning 4A state Player of the Year for the defending 4A state champion. Too quick for forwards and too big for guards, Garner poses a matchup nightmare, equally comfortable popping jumpers from the high post or slipping to the rack past pressing defenders. She’s good for 15 to 25 points a night and 7 to 13 rebounds to go with three steals and a block regardless of who Bonneville happens to be playing.
So Garner’s teammates don’t mind when Garner twists teammate Kelsey Smith’s ponytail in the huddle. Anymore, they don’t even notice. Garner’s quirks and skills are all part of what has proven to be a very winning formula.
“That’s just Mailie,” McMurtrey said. “You don’t mess with the mojo.”
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Last winter, Sugar-Salem’s Sofia Hepworth charged full-bore on a fastbreak with only Bonneville’s 6-foot-3 Bryndy Anderson between her and the basket.
Hardly a winning battle for a 5-7 guard, but slowing down and initiating the offense — or slowing down at all — has never been in Hepworth’s style. Instead, Hepworth went airborne, waited for her momentum to carry her past Anderson, switched the ball from her left hand to the right, and flipped in a reverse lay-in.
The play became a staple on local TV sports highlights and etched a spot in Sugar-Salem coach Todd Jensen’s memory.
“I’ll never forget that,” said Jensen, who has seen four years of Hepworth acrobatics. “It was amazing, a very hard shot. Not a girl’s move. That was something special.”
Not a girl’s move. Then again, Hepworth isn’t a typical girl.
She plays four sports in the three-season year. She has a cartoonish seven team state championships to her name, not to mention individual track titles in the long jump, medley relay and 4×100 relay.
While Hepworth’s freakish athleticism has something to do with her wild success, a few thousand bruises, 52 acres and five older brothers have something to do with it, too.
The youngest in a family of seven, Hepworth joined her brothers’ backyard games at the age of 3. Whether playing football, basketball, baseball or any other game they could dream up, the boys didn’t discriminate against their little sister.
“They didn’t’ care,” Hepworth said. “They just treated me like a boy. They’d knock me down, tell me to get back up.”
Hepworth played shortstop and pitcher in the city league baseball team until league rules forced her to switch to softball at age 12, a move Hepworth found frustrating. Girls, she found, didn’t share her need for winning.
“I wanted to play at a different level than they wanted to,” Hepworth said. “I pitched in baseball, and it was fun to play with boys. Sometimes girls are a little slow, and boys are a little more coordinated.”
As in every sport she plays, when Hepworth takes the basketball court, her eyes burn with competition. Everywhere she looks is a passing lane to dash into, a rebound to snatch, a ball handler to overwhelm.
That cold, calculating demeanor is daunting for opponents, Bonneville basketball coach Ryan Harrigfeld said.
“Just by her physicality and athleticism, she intimidates kids,” Harrigfeld said. “She’s a very nice kid, one that’s very likable. But her physical athleticism and aggressiveness intimidate opponents.”
Hepworth’s competitive fire only grew as she entered high school. Luckily, Sugar-Salem enjoyed a bumper crop of girls with the talent and the drive to keep up, opening the door for so many titles and keeping the door open for a basketball repeat this winter.
With six seniors gone from last year’s 26-0 squad, Hepworth will have to play more than the 20 minutes per game she played last season. Considering her stats in limited time, Hepworth is up to the challenge.
How can coaches slow down an athlete that turns the game into slow motion? Harrigfeld isn’t sure, especially considering Hepworth’s predatory instincts (5.0 steals per game). Often the best pass to Hepworth is a pass to the player she’s defending.
“Don’t let her catch,” Harrigfeld said. “Don’t let her shoot. Don’t let her play defense. She is so tough because she can elevate and shoot. That’s very rare in girls basketball.”
