Auburn Riverside girls basketball 2025-26 preview

Published 5:15 pm Monday, December 1, 2025

In many cases, last season was a success for the Auburn Riverside Ravens girls basketball program.

They won 11 games, finished the year over .500, and really seemed to lay a foundation for the future in Head Coach Grady Lowe’s first season. But after an 8-2 start and firmly in a playoff position, the Ravens faltered in the back half of the season, going 3-8 in the final 11 games.

Those 11 wins were the most Auburn Riverside girls basketball had in a single season since 2019, and for the Ravens to accomplish that in Lowe’s first season, he saw the potential in his group.

“Once we hit six wins, seven, eight, the seniors had elapsed any amount of winning that Riverside had done in their whole time here. There was this comfort and we got comfortable, which was right when we hit our hard part of our NPSL schedule. We went 3-8 in our last 11 games, so that was difficult,” Lowe said.

But this season, a year older, a year wiser, has Auburn Riverside rearing to go this basketball season.

The Ravens are also adding, albeit delayed, Zoe Wilder from Stadium High School. The senior led Stadium last season and transferred to Auburn Riverside during the transfer window. She is electing to take the 60/40 rule as she will sit the first 40% of the season.

“In the fall league, she made a jump from the Zoe that I saw at Stadium to now. That might be just because of the players she has around her now,” Lowe said.

Wilder came to Riverside alongside her sister, who played volleyball for the Ravens in the fall. She’s been welcomed with open arms since arriving at Oravetz Road.

“It’s been an interesting transition because my last school we didn’t have a ‘training camp.’ I think the rigor has changed for the better. I think the girls have been very welcoming to me and I have made some great friends on the team. Even though it’s been physically taxing, emotionally it was a good transition and I think I found some of my people,” Wilder said.

Knowing she was going to have to sit out and going to a new school, Wilder took time over the summer to shore up her mental game.

“Just knowing the transition I was going to face, there was a lot of training and playing. There was personal mental work that I had to do to prepare myself, knowing that this was going to be different. I’m new here, senior year, it’s a whole different world,” Wilder said.

In her career at Stadium, she won 10 games in her first three years. She saw firsthand the type of operations Riverside ran when they defeated the Tigers 67-16 and 64-38 in their two games last season.

“What I can say about their coaching is the meticulous attention to detail. I would say he’s very stats based and that is very important. I think he knows what each girl needs to succeed,” said Wilder.

But in Wilder’s absence, another group of seniors will take the reigns, led by the Lowe sisters. AJ and Cora learned a lot of the type of basketball they needed to play in their first season at the varsity level here in Washington.

“I really want to be that senior leader we were kind of missing last year. I feel like we had a lot of talent, but not a lot of presence. I want to have a bigger presence and role to help my team in more ways than just playing on the court,” Cora Lowe said.

Lowe took a big stride in the offseason to improve her game beyond the arc and now is starting to be recruited to play at various schools across the country.

“My (assistant) coaches are really high on Cora, my daughter. From where she was going into AAU ball in the summer, to where she is now. Her recruiting is a reflection of that. She’s almost a different player. She shot 20% from three last year, that was her focus this year,” Coach Lowe said. “She’s had a lot of improvement.”

There is a lot of intrigue in the NPSL as well. The talent is still there, but as far as 4A is concerned, only three coaches from 2024-25 are back, and Lowe is one of them. This gives the allure that the league is wide open for the taking and the Ravens want to give it their best shot.

Last year the analogy for the Ravens’ season under Lowe in his first year leading the program was an expedition to get to the top of Mount Rainier, aka the Tacoma Dome. They failed that mission, but the lessons learned opened Lowe’s eyes to how close this team was.

”We had Auburn on the ropes here in the last game of the season, we win and we got to district. I think that was a turning point for us. That was the closest in my mind, to my knowledge, that a team had been to Auburn. That point gave us a foundation culture-wise,” Lowe said.

Building that foundation and keeping it strong takes a village, especially with the JV and C team programs. Last year Asiyan Upke was a swing player and due to injuries on varsity, she made her debut as a freshman when the team was searching for answers. Upke has impressed Cora Lowe and is looking to have an even larger role this season.

”She was able to go in there whenever we needed and was so athletic. Her fundamental skills just weren’t there at that time. But since that last game, we put in so much work in the summer and in the fall. She’s put in so much work to get better and her ball handling and shooting. She’s a real threat,” Cora Lowe said.

Along with a senior class primed and ready, Auburn Riverside also has some freshmen that will start throughout the year and make an impact.

“You get the senior leadership and the freshmen newness of the next generation. For me, that is what is exciting, how far do the seniors take us and how much do the freshmen grow,” Lowe said.

The Ravens hosted a tournament on Nov. 28-29 and brought in teams from around the state to play. The Ravens went 0-2 with loses to Evergreen (Vancouver) and Enumclaw to start their season.

The Ravens then go on the road at Curtis on Dec. 1 and open their league season against Tahoma on Dec. 5 at home.