All-Area Team of the Year: Syracuse cultivated new identity, trust throughout 20-4 run
Hamblin crosses 123 career wins, region championship with Titans in Year 7
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- Syracuse High girls basketball players celebrate on the bench during a 6A second-round playoff game Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Syracuse.
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- Left to right: Syracuse senior Aubri Stoker (5) and junior Rachel McBride (12) listen to head coach Braden Hamblin (kneeling) during the 6A girls basketball quarterfinals on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.
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- Syracuse High’s Olivia Sorenson, right, starts an inside pass during a 6A second-round playoff game Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Syracuse.
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- Davis High’s Emma Loveland, left, defends Syracuse High’s Maylee Anderson (2) during a game Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, in Syracuse.
BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner
Syracuse High girls basketball players celebrate on the bench during a 6A second-round playoff game Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Syracuse.
SYRACUSE — The winningest season of Braden Hamblin’s career didn’t result in a state title. However, the many highs and consequential lows of Syracuse girls basketball’s recent campaign hint toward greater heights in his coaching future.
Syracuse in the 2025 Standard-Examiner All-Area Girls Basketball Team of the Year.
The latest 6A state tournament was hardly a bastion of Northern Utah storylines as multiple girls squads met swift exits from Salt Lake City. A freshmen-backed No. 7 Lone Peak toppled the likes of No. 2 Syracuse and No. 6 Davis to reach, and claim, the 6A crown.
Lone Peak cruised over Syracuse 56-30 in the quarterfinals, bringing the party to an abrupt 20-4 end on the biggest stage. Syracuse recently secured its first region championship since 2012 when former coach Rob Reisbeck led the Titans to an unbeaten 22-0 state title finish.
The minutes following Syracuse’s season-ending defeat left All-Area shooting guard Maylee Anderson disoriented.
CONNER BECKER, Standard-Examiner
Left to right: Syracuse senior Aubri Stoker (5) and junior Rachel McBride (12) listen to head coach Braden Hamblin (kneeling) during the 6A girls basketball quarterfinals on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.
“I wish it could’ve gone further,” Anderson said. “We weren’t prepared for how good and physical they really were once they came out. We realized that we weren’t prepared for their physicality.”
Syracuse stormed through a Region 1 schedule packed with competitors, including a similarly young-but-talented, 21-4 Fremont program that handed down the Titans’ third regular-season loss, snapping a 10-game winning streak for Hamblin and Co.
Losing four seniors — Aubri Stoker, Hadly Farr, Kyleigh Nielson and Grace Thomas — to graduation, Syracuse’s prospective returning class of eight current juniors, including leading scorers Anderson (14.3 ppg) and Rachel McBride (10.1 ppg), will guide Hamblin’s eighth ride.
“It’s a bit of an adjustment always being together for four months,” Hamblin said. “Being together every day, going to practice and working hard to achieve goals … It’s cooled down. We’ve gone through that transitional period and we’ve done some exit interviews already.
“But that’s not how we wanted to end it.”
BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner
Syracuse High's Olivia Sorenson, right, starts an inside pass during a 6A second-round playoff game Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Syracuse.
Hamblin made an effort to express his gratitude toward the team in the days after their quarterfinal loss to Lone Peak.
“I’ve praised these girls all season, but I really shouted it out as the season ended and we kind of talked together,” Hamblin said. “This team, I feel like more than any I’ve coached so far, has been ‘together.’ They truly do like each other on and off the floor.”
McBride is one of several girls slated to rejoin Hamblin and the Titans when summer hoops tip off in just a few months. In three seasons, McBride has learned to trust her coach.
“He’s done a good job at communicating and asking us what we need to do,” McBride said.
Asked about his offseason priorities, Hamblin said the key dividend of those scrimmages and tournaments doesn’t come on the floor at all. The 123-career win coach instead looks for where, and when, his group bounces off each other the most.
BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner
Davis High's Emma Loveland, left, defends Syracuse High's Maylee Anderson (2) during a game Friday, Jan. 17, 2025, in Syracuse.
Only then, can Hamblin turn towards the game itself.
“That’s where it has to start,” Hamblin said. “It starts with building together with a couple of the new girls here in the offseason and keeping that aspect in the back of our minds as we move forward.”
Connect with sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net and X @ctbecker.
