Emotions run the gamut at the Class 4A state basketball tournaments

Published 11:24 pm Thursday, February 28, 2008

TACOMA — Any doubt one has about the cruelty of a double-elimination tournament didn’t see Jackson High School senior guard Kristi Kingma Thursday.

Moments after her Timberwolves were ousted from the state 4A girls basketball soiree by a 77-74 loss to Skyview, all Kingma wanted to do was to join her teammates in the dressing room for a good cry.

After all, as the Timberwolves began the tournament Wednesday, they were one of the favorites to take it all. They’d built a 21-game win streak and entered the tourney at 22-1. They also boasted one of the state’s most decorated players in Kingma, who will move on to play at the University of Washington next season.

But Kingma’s route to the locker room was interrupted by Jackson coach Jeannie Thompson, who alerted Kingma that the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association wanted her back out on the court so it could recognize her for breaking the tournament record by having scored a career-high 43 points.

Kingma wanted to do it as much as she wanted to re-take a Sociology final. But the bosses spoke, so Kingma obliged, even through the faulty intro, which mistakenly shorted her a point. Immediately afterward, she resumed her teary trot backstage with her teammates one last time.

“The best part about Kristi is that she’s absolutely selfless,” said Thompson, who also was moved to tears following her team’s disappointing performances against Moses Lake and Skyview. “She would give up those 43 points in a second if it meant her team were playing tomorrow.”

But they won’t. And neither will the Mariner boys, a gutty team that led second-ranked Franklin — a surprise first-round upset victim of Federal Way Wednesday — by 10 points in the third quarter, only to lose a thriller.

Franklin, you’ll remember, mauled the Marauders 78-50 last year in the tournament’s first round. The Quakers came into this year’s tournament having not lost to any team in the state, only to a pair of elite teams from California. The magic of the bracket — some say its curse — dictated a rematch in a loser-out game Thursday.

“At first everyone was kind of scared,” Mariner guard junior Michael Minor said about when it became apparent that the Marauders would have to beat the Quakers or go home. “After that, we kept motivating ourselves to get ready to play them.”

That’s not easy. Few prep teams pressure as the Quakers do. Few have the athletes to potentially turn every foe’s possession into a steal and an easy layup. No team can duplicate Franklin’s pressure in practice.

So pressure Franklin did in erasing a 35-25 Mariner lead with 3:44 to play in the third quarter. The Quakers took the lead midway through the fourth quarter by scoring and held on.

Franklin’s opponent in today’s consolation semifinal will be Snohomish, the only one of the three area teams in the loser’s bracket to survive with a come-from-behind 68-63 win over Mountain View.

For three quarters, the Panthers appeared ready to head home. They scored the first seven points of the game, but yielded to the Thunder’s fast break and second-chance points.

It wasn’t until Mountain View took a 47-37 advantage with 90 seconds remaining in the third quarter did the Panthers kick it into gear. They showed a sense of desperation they hadn’t all tournament, finally taking the lead midway through the fourth with a combination of 12 free throws and 3-pointers by junior Brad Shaw.

Shaw finished with a game-high 26 points, 19 in the second half. Snohomish needed every one in a 68-63 win.

“There was a little doubt,” Shaw said. “We were flying around pretty good. Bottom line is that we had to hit shots. Give them a lot of credit. We had to hit shots to win that game.”

Panthers coach Len Bone will take it. Nearly every year, the Panthers lose the tourney opener and survive to play Saturday. To do it this time around will require a supreme effort against the quicker and more athletic Quakers.

“Having fun?” a grinning Bone asked after the victory.

In the loser’s bracket, only Snohomish had any fun.

The Mariner boys and Jackson girls will have to wait another year.

Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. For Sleeper[`]s blog, “Dangling Participles,” go to cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/heraldnet/danglingparticiples.