Herald staff
TACOMA – With just under 5 minutes remaining in Thursday’s 4A boys basketball state quarterfinal game against Stanwood, Battle Ground coach Butch Blue wandered down the length of his bench in search of players. There were plenty of them, but most were ineligible to come back into the game.
Four Battle Ground starters fouled out during the course of Stanwood’s 73-59 victory, including two during the first two minutes of the second half. Over the final 4 1/2 minutes, Blue had just six players eligible to play.
“The way they were dropping,” he said afterward, “I was wondering about it.”
Blue refused to question the officiating of Thursday’s contest, even though his team was on the short end of a 38-14 discrepancy in free throws.
“I know that we are the only ones that we can control,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “So it doesn’t do any good to have any opinion on the officiating. Our players can only control one person – themselves – and I can only control one person, and that’s me. The officials have their job to do, and they do it how they see fit I guess.”
Battle Ground’s lack of bodies was not completely out of the coach’s control. He chose to leave starting center Joe James in the game despite the fact that he had three fouls midway through the second quarter. James collected his fourth foul with 2:18 remaining in the first half, then fouled out less than a minute into the third quarter.
Forward James Seifert was granted a similarly long leash, then fouled out after collecting two fouls during the first 3 1/2 minutes of the second half.
“It’s what I always do,” Blue said of leaving his players in despite foul trouble. “We very seldom have guys foul out. I don’t believe in taking guys out just because they have three fouls. If they have four fouls, I start them in the second half so they stay fresh. Today it just wasn’t going to happen.
“I’ve been doing it that way for 27 years, and I’ll keep doing it that way. I guess there was just no way not to foul.”
Under the weather: Stanwood boys coach Nate DuChesne didn’t spend much time celebrating the Spartans’ opening-round victory on Wednesday night. DuChesne was up for most of the night with a 12-hour flu.
He eventually left his hotel room at 1:45 p.m. and made it to the Tacoma Dome in time for Thursday’s 3:30 game, but wasn’t exactly feeling like himself.
“I’m feeling a lot better,” he said after Thursday’s win. “I haven’t eaten, so I’m real light-headed.”
In an effort to avoid inflicting his players with a virus, DuChesne skipped Thursday’s shootaround and kept his distance during a pre-game speech.
“He can’t get in our face because he doesn’t want to breath on us,” junior Ryan Appleby said. “He’s going to have to yell at us from a distance.”
Long week: Even if they don’t bring home a state championship, the Snohomish High School fans have to rank among the most dedicated at the tournament.
Snohomish High used eight buses to make the 70-mile drive to see the boys and girls teams play. The distance wasn’t as inconvenient as the schedule.
The girls team has played both its first two games in the morning, while the boys have played night games. As a result, Snohomish fans have been forced to spend as much as eight hours in Tacoma with nothing to do.
“It makes it difficult,” said senior Matt Leopold, his face painted in red and white as he prepared for Thursday night’s boys semifinal, “but we’re dedicated.”
Leopold and classmates Nick Rexroat and Tom Patten spent their free time between games in a variety of ways. On Thursday, they saw a movie and visited some of the cheerleaders and members of the band at a nearby hotel. Then they drove to Fife and “checked out some thrift stores,” according to Rexroat.
Although the senior trio took the bus Wednesday – it departed Snohomish at 6 a.m. and didn’t return until after midnight – they opted to drive themselves Thursday. It’s a good thing, because they decided to spend last night in Tacoma to assure they could be at this morning’s girls game, which starts at 11 a.m.
All in all, Snohomish’s fans didn’t seem too frustrated with the odd scheduling.
“It’s our last year,” Leopold said, “so we sold out.”
Play ball … or not: The strangest occurrence of Thursday’s games came during an evening semifinal matchup between Enumclaw and Franklin.
Enumclaw, the underdog, held the ball near halfcourt for almost the entire final four minutes of the first half while maintaining a 24-19 lead. Franklin refused to challenge the Hornets’ point guard, who simply stood with the ball under his arm while the clock ran down. Amid boos from the Tacoma Dome crowd, Enumclaw eventually put the ball in play with 30 seconds remaining and hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to go ahead by eight points.
T-Rex sighting: They call him T-Rex because he’s big.
During the first two days of the Class 4A state basketball tournament, the play of Stanwood’s Trevor Smith has been as big as his 6-foot-9 frame.
It hasn’t always been that way.
Though he stands nearly 4 inches taller than any other Spartans, Smith has been used sparingly for much of his career, including his senior season.
Smith sat on the bench for five of Stanwood’s games this season, and made only cameo appearances in many others. Recently, however, that has changed.
“Trevor has been working very hard in practice and we’ve seen a lot of improvement,” Stanwood coach Nate DuChesne said. “We knew coming down here in this field that we’d see a lot more size.”
The T-Rex evolution began in Friday’s district championship game, when Smith contributed eight points to Stanwood’s victory.
In Wednesday’s first-round state tournament game, Smith contributed eight points and five rebounds in 11 minutes.
Smith was 5-for-6 from the free-throw line during his 11 minutes Thursday against Battle Ground. He also grabbed seven rebounds and blocked three shots to help the Spartans qualify for a semifinal game.
“We needed to have him play some good minutes and he’s done that,” DuChesne said. “We’re going to put that to good use.”
Shooting display: Jefferson’s Jessiye Clark is not afraid to keep chucking. A day after she missed nine of 10 3-point shots via the airball, Clark hit a tournament record seven 3s to bring down Oak Harbor on Thursday.
“(Wednesday) night after I only hit the rim twice, I was determined,” said Clark, who shot 2-for-12 overall in Wednesday’s first-round loss to Richland.
Clark spent Thursday trading long shots with Oak Harbor’s Marci Manibusan, who made five 3s in the game. Manibusan was steady behind the arc in both games. She made four of eight Wednesday and was 5-for-12 Thursday.
“We kind of went back and forth,” Manibusan said. “You hit a 3 and get all pumped up. Then they come back and hit one and you’re thinking ‘dang it.’ But it was fun.”
Impressive Strides: Despite losing consecutive games, the Kamiak Knights, in just their first state appearance, went down fighting. In a game no one gave them a chance to win, the Knights took third-ranked Enumclaw down to the wire. A seven-point loss to perennial state participant Snohomish sent them home after two days of action. Regardless of their early exit, the Knights have made impressive strides since the hiring of coach Doug Montzingo two years ago. In Montzingo’s first season, the Knights won a league championship. And now, he has led a team that loses five players to graduation, to the prestigious state tournament.
Beating Adversity: In perhaps the most important game of the season, when routine matters most, the Snohomish Panthers had several untimely obstacles to hurdle – and all before 8 a.m. First, the van that brought half of the team to the Tacoma Dome had a door that wouldn’t shut.
So what’s a coach to do, sit in an awkwardly fashion for the trip from the hotel while securing the permanently ajar door using a strap.
“We had a lot of adversity to overcome and that was before we even got here,” said a giggling Emmy Cornwell following Snohomish’s 54-47 victory over Kamiak.
Not exactly a catastrophe, but a nuisance nevertheless especially when an unexpected traffic jam lay ahead. A 10-minute commute suddenly turned into a long drawn-out delay. The Panthers finally made it to the Dome, but had just 10 minutes to dress and warm up instead of the usual hour and a half.
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