The SHS Player-a-Day countdown concludes with junior guard Dawson Driggs.

Call it old-school, but I always have notepad and pen when I cover basketball. Most of my written notes track runs, stats or hastily-scrawled play-by-play in case the game gets close.

The notepad looked different for the Bonners Ferry game. There, in the midst of all the jargon, was an all-caps sentence next to a red “15,” circled twice for good measure: “So THIS is the player SHS was missing.”

Dawson Driggs’s debut against the Badgers was, amongst many superlatives, one of the best individual halves of basketball Sandpoint had in 2018-19. The junior outscored the Badgers by herself, and scored 15 of Sandpoint’s 32 first-half points thanks to her aggressiveness off the dribble and a knack for getting to the free-throw line. She brought a level of energy and intensity to a Sandpoint team that was still finding its footing. She did everything.

It almost goes without saying, but Sandpoint became a different team with her on the court: Its back-court got deeper, turnovers dropped and the team had a third lead-scoring option to compliment Hattie Larson and Maddie Morgan.

The synergy Driggs had with the latter was invaluable on both ends of the floor. Her interior scoring perfectly complimented Morgan’s outside shooting; more often than not, one of the junior’s plays would open up opportunities for the other.

With one more offseason and a full senior season ahead of her, Driggs is poised to make even bigger leaps in 2019-20.

Game of note: vs. Bonners Ferry

In Will Love’s words: “We missed Dawson at the beginning of the year. She is turning into an all-around player who is a team leader in several categories including points, rebounds and assists. She has triple-double potential.”