Garfield guard Katie Fiso is The News Tribune’s 2023 state player of the year

That first Saturday in March, just after Garfield High School’s girls basketball team won its third straight Class 3A state championship, the celebration began for the Bulldogs on the floor in the Tacoma Dome.

Katie Fiso missed most of the initial revelries. The tournament’s Most Valuable Player was busy working her way down press row, donning one set of headphones for a radio interview, then exchanging them for another set and another interview.

It wasn’t the first time, nor is it likely to be the last time Fiso will miss a victory celebration. For one, the junior has another try at a state title next March, and it didn’t take long for her to transition from the win to what’s next.

“They have to deal with me for one more year,” said Fiso, who is The News Tribune’s 2023 girls basketball state player of the year.

Her confidence is borne from a work ethic that won’t let Fiso fail.

“It comes from the hours in the gym,” Fiso said. “Definitely from the love I have for the game. I want to do this all the time.”

That’s just who Katie Fiso is.

“She’s just hyper-, hyper-competitive,” Lake Washington coach Jeff Wilson said. “We saw her in a video that was posted during a timeout. She gets up in her teammates faces to pick them up,”

Fiso comes by her competitive nature naturally. She has three older sisters, all of whom went on to play college basketball.

“I loved watching my sisters play,” Fiso said. “I always used to watch them play with the older guys at the ‘Y.’ I’ve added that, playing more with the boys, to get better.”

Sisters Brianna and Emily played at Mount Rainier and West Seattle, then went on to Northwest University and Central Washington. Meghan, the 3A state tournament MVP in 2020, when Garfield won the first of its current string of three straight titles, went to Michigan before transferring to San Diego State.

“We dealt with Meghan for the first one (2020),” said Wilson, whose Kangaroos have met Garfield in each of the three championship games. “It kind of feels like she is going to be the best of all of them. It feels like Katie is going to be a Power Five kid.”

It seems recruiters agree with Wilson and have for a long time. Fiso got her first Power Five Division I offer before she even stepped on campus at Garfield, in fact.

That offer came from Arizona in June 2019, more than a year before she began her freshman year at Garfield. It wasn’t even her first Division I offer — that honor going to Boise State.

“I’m truly blessed,” said Fiso, who plans to narrow her choices to a Top 5 sometime before her senior year begins in the fall. “It’s been an amazing experience.”

Since then, teams from across the country have added to the list. Fiso owns offers from the likes of Washington State, Gonzaga, Harvard, Cal, USC, Oklahoma, Arizona, Utah State, Washington, Utah, Montana State, Oregon State, Boise State, Pepperdine, Penn State and UCLA.

Fiso lost the chance to win four state championships to the COVID-19 pandemic, which wiped out the 2020-21 state playoffs in all sports.

The 5-foot-10 point guard led the Bulldogs this season by scoring 22 points per game. But her ability to put the ball in the basket may not even be her greatest asset for her current Garfield squad or whichever college gets lucky enough to have her in 15 months.

Even her competitive fire may not be No. 1 on the list, though that attribute has been touted since she was playing youth club ball. In August 2019, the recruiting website “Elite is Earned” wrote of Fiso: “It’s a little scary how ready Fiso is to compete against upperclassmen. Her length and shift combined with supreme confidence allows her to be very competitive against physically stronger opposition.”

She’s continued to improve with a work ethic that impresses even a former professional in first-year Garfield coach Tre Simmons.

“I’ve had to kick her out of the gym after practice,” Simmons said. “I’m very fortunate to have her on my team.”

Wilson has another idea.

“I think she’s elite with the basketball in her hands,” Wilson said. “She can cross you over, go behind the back and through her legs at full speed and not even get a hitch at all. It’s so tough to guard her. You’re just trying to get the ball out of her hands.”

Fiso, who began as a post player but has developed her ball-handling as she transitioned to the point, laughed and then thanked Wilson.

“The secret,” Fiso said. “Cone drills with the heavy ball.”

From those countless hours in the gym.