Prep Athlete of the Week: Kyra Brantner

Kyra Brantner of Garfield-Palouse girls basketball was strong all season, but she stood out perhaps more than ever as the Viking girls made a postseason run to the Washington Class 1B state final earlier this month.

“Ever since we hit the playoffs, she turned it up a notch,” Gar-Pal coach Garrett Parrish said. “That game, her speed — they couldn’t stop it. She got up and down the court; she made layins; she had great passes for people to get open layins.”

The 5-foot-8 sophomore guard scored 16 points in the Vikings’ state quarterfinal victory over Yakama Tribal, then had 19 points and claimed seven rebounds to lead her team past Waterville-Mansfield in the semifinals. Though Gar-Pal would come up short in the state title game, Brantner got a cherry on top of her season in another form as she was voted the Tribune’s Prep Athlete of the Week.

Brantner took up basketball at an early age under the influence of her family and community.

“Growing up in Palouse, everybody plays it,” she said. “It’s everybody’s first sport. My parents, my grandpa — they really pushed me towards it to try and be really good at it.”

She started playing for the high school team as an eighth grader (which is permitted in some small-school sports divisions), so she already has three years of prep experience under her belt. She aspires to help Gar-Pal go all the way to a state title before she is done.

Away from the basketball court, Brantner is also a standout for the Vikings in volleyball and track and field. She is now embarking on a new season of the latter sport, in which she hopes to contend for postseason glory in sprinting and jumping events.