High School Spotlight: Barlow Bruins friend-duo make 1k Career Point Club

GRESHAM Ore. (KPTV) - A pair of elite scorers for Gresham’s Sam Barlow High School are longtime buddies making it rain buckets on buckets along the Barlow Trail.

Kennedie Shuler and Annie Koenig have been friends from third grade to their senior year in high school.

“There was this one game we played all the time, and everyone got into this game it was really important at recess so I think I was like, ‘oh, I can play with her,’” Koenig said. “We just got to the point where we can kind of read each other’s minds and just play off each other. We know exactly where the other person is going to be on the floor.”

Hooping since the days of Barlow youth ball to the Bruins’ varsity squad and club teammates with Northwest Select, the two friends are bonded by basketball and leadership. Koenig is ASB Historian with a 4.0 GPA and Shuler is Spirit Commissioner with a 3.9, and both are now part of the Bruins’ 1,000 Career Point Club.

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“Being student athletes and loving basketball and we’re good students as well and we have the same morals and drive,” Shuler said. “It’s just kind of an accomplishment like you see when you are elementary school or middle school and you see kids hit a thousand points in high school, it’s kind of like, ‘oh, I want to do that.’ Then, when you do it, little Kennedie would be proud right now.”

Koenig said she didn’t know the 1,000-point mark was coming, even after hints she got from Shuler.

“I had no idea what she was talking about, she’s like, ‘never mind, it will be a surprise,’” Koenig said. “So, I was totally caught off guard, but I think it shows how much work we put in and obviously we don’t get here without all of our teammates helping us out, giving us those assists, screening for us and I think that kind of shows how special this whole team is.”

The Barlow core made its first state run in 20 years last March, with a first ever OSAA title game appearance, and the Chiles Center is calling again.

Shuler said the community coming together around women’s basketball last year was special.

“Yeah we fell short, but the little things like that made it what really matters,” Shuler said.

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After graduation, Shuler will swap her royal blue and gold for orange and black to ball for Oregon State University.

Koenig said she’ll be cheering on her friend’s new team, “even though -”

“She is a Duck,” Shuler said, interrupting.

“I will be a Beaver fan,” Koenig replied.

But first, the two friends are hoping to get back to the Chiles Center and play for that 6A state title.

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