RENTON – The Monroe girls basketball team took the long road to the Class 4A state tournament.
Their reward for winning four loser-out games is a first-round matchup with No. 1 Prairie – the defending champion – when the tournament begins Wednesday at the Tacoma Dome.
The good news for Bearcats coach Alan Dickson is that he won’t have to guard against overconfidence while preparing for a 24-1 team. The bad news is that Monroe will battle a program that has won five state championships among its nine top-three finishes in the last 11 seasons.
“It’d be nice to have a warmup game,” said Dickson, whose 23-2 team learned its fate Sunday at the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association offices in Renton. “But, sometimes that can hurt you, too.”
That was true on Feb. 25, when Western Conference North Division No. 1-seed Monroe fell to fifth-seeded Lake Stevens in the first-round of the Northwest District tournament. The Bearcats won four straight in eight days – including Saturday’s vengeful hammering of Lake Stevens – to earn the district’s final berth. District champion Snohomish (21-2), which lost to Prairie during the regular season, will face 17-8 Port Angeles at 3:30 p.m. The Mountlake Terrace boys (20-4) will play South Kitsap (18-8) at 5:30. District-champion Mount Vernon (20-3) is scheduled to play Bellarmine Prep (16-8) at 7 p.m.
While Prairie is a tough draw, Dickson believes beating the Falcons would give the Bearcats momentum toward achieving their goal of winning a state championship.
“I still feel there are six teams that can win it, and I feel we’re one of the six,” Dickson said. “And, I think they’re one of the six.
The Bearcats are in the half of the bracket that is considered brutal. Five of the eight teams were ranked in the top seven of the most recent WashingtonPreps.com poll. The worst record among them is Capital’s 20-4.
“You’ve got to beat them sometime if you want to be the champs,” said Monroe point guard Chelsey Zimmerman, whose team would face 2003 runner-up Central Valley in a Thursday quarterfinal if both teams win its openers. “We’re ready to go. I know that they’re a solid team, but I think they know we’re a solid team.”
Snohomish coach Ken Roberts pointed out that rankings often don’t mean much in the tournament but was glad to be in the other side of the bracket.
“That top half of the bracket is loaded,” Roberts said. “There are 12 teams in the tournament with four or less losses, and four of those are in our half. As far as the draw goes, you need to make your own luck and you need to play well.”
Three victories in three days would put the Panthers against the other half’s survivor in Saturday’s championship game.
Terrace will play a familiar opponent. The Hawks played South Kitsap during a summer camp.
“That means a heck of a lot and a heck of nothing,” Terrace coach Nalin Sood said. “We’re glad it’s them, but that doesn’t mean that at the end of the basketball game we’ll be happy. … We’ll be prepared – our kids, hopefully, will know if their kids come with different socks on. But, when the game comes along, you’ve got to go play.”
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