RALEIGH, N.C. - Taylor Brazen is describing the pile of snacks on Carly Stowell's tray during the flight from Seattle, and they all giggle and say, almost in unison, "She loved food!" Julia Fjortoft suggests the story about the beer can. Another girl starts the story - following a team dinner the previous night, Stowell leaped from a ledge onto a paper bag on the sidewalk. Someone else continues - unbeknownst to Stowell, there is a can of beer in the bag and it explodes, spraying beer all over Stowell's legs.

Hee, hee. They all bust out. And for a few minutes after the first game without their fallen friend and leader, the mid-teen girls on the Seattle-based Emerald City Legends 15U club team discuss Carly Stowell and, even in death, she puts a smile on their faces.

Carly Stowell

It gets serious for a moment, and someone says, "She was the nicest one of all of us."

Brazen looks up and repeats, "She was the nicest."

And now she's gone. All the way on the other side of the country on Thursday night, just a week short of her 15th birthday, Carly Stowell of Kent, Wash., which is about 20 miles south of Seattle, was about to do her homework, turned to her mother, Elena, with a distant look, then collapsed and died in the team's hotel near the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Attempts at resuscitation by Elena Stowell and paramedics at the scene, as well as doctors at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, were unsuccessful.

The Legends are here for the Deep South Classic, an adidas-sponsored, college-evaluation event. Longtime director Michael T. White said the closest his events have come to such a tragedy has been broken limbs, anterior-cruciate ligament tears and nose breaks. "It's sad because it was the evening before the event," White said. "This was a young player on the rise, who had a chance to get maximum exposure before hundreds of college coaches."

The exact cause of death will not be known for some two weeks, though doctors told Elena Stowell and Emerald City coach Mo Hines that Carly Stowell may have developed a clot during the flight from Seattle which lodged in her heart, or that she may have had a previously undetected heart defect.

The only clear thing about a long evening that stretched into the wee hours of Friday was the resolve of Stowell's teammates to play Friday night in her honor. About three Emerald City players knew of the tragedy shortly after it happened. The rest of the team met after awakening with Hines, their parents and grief counselors dispatched by Rex Hospital; Hines and the parent group let the players decide what they wanted to do.

Kylie Huerta and teammates wore "21"

"We thought of what Carly would do, what she would want," said Sanda Milovic, a sophomore at Kentwood High in Covington, Wash. "In her interest, it was our honor to play for her, to do our best for her."

So with heavy hearts and lids and Stowell's jersey number - 21 - scrawled on their shoulders and sneakers, the Legends played the Michigan Belles at North Carolina State's Carmichael Gym, on a court, appropriately it seemed for the occasion, brightly lit on one end and dark and gloomy at the other.

Some of their parents wondered before the game if the girls would have the energy or emotional reserve to play well. Many had not slept the night before. Morganne Comstock, Stowell's best friend and Kentlake High School teammate, cried all afternoon, according to her mother, Darla, and was able to stop just before leaving for the game. Visibly drained, Comstock mustered a suitable tribute, collecting 19 points, six rebounds and three blocks as Emerald City won 50-39. Kylie Huerta of Kentwood High, another close friend, had eight points, five assists and three steals. Brazen snared nine rebounds.

Three of Stowell's Legends teammates - Comstock, Riley Butler and Dakotah Sisco - also were classmates at Kentlake High School, which held a vigil for Stowell on Friday night.

"It was hard not having her on the court with us," Huerta said, "but all of us love basketball, like she did, and it was a way to escape."

The Legends started slowly, missed a lot of shots and, according to Hines, did not execute as sharply as usual and seemed tired and slow. Stowell, after all, was their starting point guard, who several team mothers say had an infectious smile and her teammates say tended to them ceaselessly. She also had a knack for making a big, early play that got the Legends rolling.

"I felt like we were missing a piece," Hines said.

Morganne Comstock

There likely will be many expressing a similar sentiment because extinguished, by all accounts, was a light almost blindingly incandescent. Carly Stowell was an honor student who played the clarinet, piano, saxophone, trumpet, flute and cello. Last week, she and the Kentlake High School Jazz Band earned the Outstanding Festival Band trophy at the Gene Harris Jazz Festival on the Boise State University campus. The band director is her father, Chuck Stowell.

Stowell and Comstock were the lynchpins of a Kentlake girl's basketball program on the rise. As freshmen, the two were the team's leading scorers, co-MVPs and led the Falcons to the 2007 Washington State 4A Tournament. According to her Emerald City teammates, Stowell, a second-team South Puget Sound League selection, consistently showed up 30 minutes early to practice and worked the hardest on her game. She was judged to be among the top 30 players at the adidas Junior Phenom Camp last summer. In an email to Hines, Chris Mennig, director of the Rising Blue Star Camp, which is held just outside of Chicago, enthusiastically described Stowell's performance and said he and Blue Star president Mike Flynn, an influential high-school scout, considered her among the 13 camp players at the "Major," or highest, level.

Hines says Stowell "was on the up and up," and was a major element of a club team of rising sophomores and freshmen which has played together a few years and expected to become a force regionally and, it hoped, on a national scale. Her Legends teammates vow to continue their tribute throughout this tournament and the spring and summer club season.

"We all have really big shoes to fill," Brazen said. "It's going to be a struggle, but it's also an opportunity to grow."

Legends coach Mo Hines breaks his team

Carly Stowell's last day - Thursday - is etched in their minds. They spent it touring the Duke University campus in nearby Durham and the University of North Carolina, also nearby, in Chapel Hill. The sun was bright. They took a lot of pictures. They laughed a lot. They met Duke basketball stars DeMarcus Nelson and Jon Scheyer. They gaped at the Cameron Indoor Stadium court at Duke and the one at the Dean Dome at UNC. They ran on the field at the football stadiums. Stowell led a mock press conference in the Duke media center.

The Legends all are sure Stowell broke out in song. She liked to sing and liked "Over My Head," by The Fray, the best. She sang it before every game.

They talked about it all day Friday, between sobs. The parents agree. So do the Legends.

"It was," they all say, "a perfect day."

A day to remember, and be remembered, and to live on in their hearts.

Taylor Brazen (10) gets five from Dakotah Sisco

Glenn Nelson is the publisher of HoopGurlz.com. He also founded and coached the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girl's basketball teams. Glenn previously was the editor-in-chief at Scout.com and a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle Times. His work also has appeared in several books and national magazines. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). He can be reached at hoopgurlz@comcast.net.