By Gail Wood
Coming into the season, there were two familiar faces returning for the Hoquiam High School girls basketball team.
First, there was Mark Maxfield, who has coached one sport or another since 1974.
“I just love sports. I love coaching,” Maxfield said. “It helps keep you young.”
And besides Maxfield, there was Ellie Quercia, a senior and four-year starter. Need points? Need an assist? Need a steal? Need a rebound? Quercia, a 5’7″, pogo-stick point guard, can do it all. She leads Hoquiam in points, assists, steals and rebounds.
“She’s our floor leader,” Maxfield said. “She pushes the ball. She’s very, very unselfish. She could score more than eight a game if she chose to. She doesn’t care about that. She likes assists.”
Hoquiam has three players averaging about eight points per game. Besides Quercia, there’s Kelci Parker and Olivia Rose. Kylie Stewart, a 5’7″ junior wing, is averaging six points. While the Grizzlies don’t have the go-to player averaging 20-plus points, they do have a lot of options offensively.
“Yeah, a different kid steps up every night,” Maxfield said. “Teams can’t concentrate on just one kid.”
Hoquiam has overcome one missing ingredient this season with a hustling, pressuring defense. They’ve compensated for a lack of size with a hand-in-the-face, full-court defense, switching from zone to man to zone throughout a game. The Grizzlies have a lineup for guards and wings. Their tallest players – Olivia Rose and Isabel Hernandez – are 5’8″.
Without the big center, Hoquiam has forced turnovers with their pressure defense and scored off the fastbreak.
“We try very hard to put on defensive pressure and get steals,” Maxwell said. “We try to score in transition. We don’t match up well with size, obviously. We need to transition and run.”
It’s been a winning formula. With a 10-10 record, Hoquiam reached the playoffs and face Kalama in the first round. The winner advances to regionals Feb. 27-28.
Quercia isn’t just a basketball player, a four-year starter who her coach says is the best player on their team. She also starts on the soccer and fastpitch teams, earning all-league honors in both sports. By the time she graduates this spring, she’ll have earned 12 varsity letters. That means she’s earned a varsity letter in every sport she’s played since her freshman year. (Read more about Quercia’s accomplishments on the soccer pitch in this article.)
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had one of those,” Maxfield said. “Soccer is her favorite. Fastpitch is her second favorite. And basketball is her third favorite sport. And she’s still our best player. She’s just a good athlete.”
But Quercia isn’t just an athlete, a jock who thinks only about sports. She’s an A student and, Maxfield said, will likely be the graduating class valedictorian. She’s a rare breed, a mix of athleticism and brains. She’s the true definition of student-athlete.
And Quercia’s accomplishments don’t stop with sports and the classroom. She’s involved with community projects. Recently, during the floods that swamped Hoquiam and Aberdeen, Quercia helped the Senior Center clear out.
“She got some things organized during the floods,” Maxfield said. “She’s a girl that likes to say active.”
When she’s taken her last swing at bat in fastpitch this spring, her athletic career won’t come to an end. She’s accepted a scholarship to play soccer at Clark College in Vancouver.
“She’s a great leader. She does a good job for us,” Maxfield said. “We’re going to miss her.”
Maxfield knows all about missing something. That’s why he’s back in coaching, taking over as the girl’s basketball coach at Hoquiam last year because he was missing coaching. After 18 years as the principal of Central Elementary School and after six years as the part-time athletic director at Hoquiam High School and after leading Hoquiam High School’s fastpitch team to a state title in 2006, Maxfield still couldn’t say goodbye to coaching. Even after he retired.
“Yeah, retirement isn’t retirement for me, I guess,” said Maxfield, who is currently the interim vice principal at North Beach High School while the current vice principal is on maternity leave.
“I started coaching my first year at Toledo in 1974,” he said. “I’ve been coaching something almost every year. It’s just something I enjoy. I enjoy sports. I enjoy the kids. It keeps me motivated and I happen to believe that it keeps a guy young.”
While Maxfield is just as driven to win as any other coach, he’s pushed by something other than the scoreboard. He sees sports as a place for students to learn about life’s lessons. It’s a place where they can learn about discipline, about determination and about teamwork.
“Everything we do in sports I try to apply to life,” Maxfield said. “It’s all about life. Most of them aren’t going to the NFL or the NBA or the Major Leagues.”
Their days of shooting jump shots and swinging for singles will end. But they’ll always have to face the challenges of day-to-day life.
“I think the people that are successful in life get along with others. They know how to be a team member,” Maxfield said.
Sports teaches teamwork. Athletes, because of their understanding of hard work and applying themselves, are often the achievers.
“Athletes, particularly in high school, are more organized and they get better grades,” Maxfield said.
Quercia is proof of that.
