SUMNER, Wash. — We first met Auburn-Riverside basketball star Katie Grad in 2008.
In 2009 we introduced you to Stadium High alum and basketball coach Chris Hyppa.
Hyppa and Grad didn't know each other back then, but they sure do now.
Since it's Valentine's Week, Chris Egan shares their love story in this week's Prep Zone.
Love and Basketball
The Sumner girls' and boys' basketball teams are having seasons to remember.
The boys' team won the South Puget Sound League (SPSL) championship. While the girls won their fourth straight league title.
"I think the biggest thing is the kids want to be here," Katie Hyppa said. "The buy-in is a huge part, right? You can have all the talent in the world. But if you don't have kids that are buying into what you're doing and want to follow your lead and believe with you, you know, then it becomes a lot harder of a road. And so far we've been fortunate to have kids that have put trust in us."
Girls head coach Katie Hyppa is a former high school All-American.
She helped Auburn-Riverside collect back-to-back state titles and knows what it takes to win.
"I mean, it takes a lot of hard work obviously, a lot a lot of preparation and a little bit of luck I think just right time, right place, right draw, right players, you know, but I think here we do have the makeup for it," Katie Hyppa said.
Helping her at Sumner is former Ravens teammates, Nicole Jackson and Julie Williams (Futch), but it's another former teammate that would change her life forever.
In 2017 Mercedes Wetmore was working with Chris Hyppa, one of the premier basketball developmental coaches in the country.
"We're sitting there after a camp one day and she's like, 'Hyppa I got the perfect girl,' and I'm like, 'alright, cool,'" Chris Hyppa said. "And I had actually heard of her obviously being so consumed in basketball, and I was like, whatever. And then I guess she was saying the exact same thing to her on the side."
"She was telling me the same thing," Katie Hyppa said. "Come on, Sades it's like I've known you too long. Like, no way. Do you have the perfect guy? Sades as a matchmaker I didn't trust her at that point.
But Wetmore was right and the courtship began.
"She just constantly challenges me, and I mean constantly will just push me just like the same thing that I do with kids that I train," Chris Hyppa said.
"He makes me have more fun, structured and logical and want to plan in place and that's a little bit of how I was raised a little bit of how I'm wired right," Katie Hyppa said. "He's a little more fly by the seat of his pants, day to day enjoy everything right so I think it's a good combination."
Chris and Katie were married in 2020. Last year Katie delivered twins, Lukka and Kai. The twins are only seven months old but already love the round ball.
"They are such good boys and it's just like looking into the future as far as you know, and I'm already thinking like the backcourt," Chris Hyppa said. "Man the lucky guy is going be me, I'm gonna be their coach. So, it's just like, it's, it's been fun."
"It's awesome having them in the gym, like seeing them with our girls and it truly does take a village right, sometimes you need people to carry a car seat," Katie Hyppa said. "The toughest part is when the girls ask to take them out of their car seat in the middle of practice, and I'm like, no, we're focusing on something else here."
Like building a championship team, on and off the court.
The Sumner girls are currently ranked second in the state and have already punched their ticket to the state tournament.