TACOMA – As if the possibility of a state title isn’t enough to weigh on teen-age minds this time of year, the annual 4A tournament comes with another sort of pressure.
Recruiters from colleges across the state are always on hand to look for possible talent.
“You can’t let it put any pressure on you,” said Monroe senior Chelsey Zimmerman, who is still undecided on a college. “If they see something they like, they’re going to like you. So you just have to go out and perform like usual. If they like you, great. If not, then you still went out and competed.”
Shortly after her 15-point performance in the Bearcats’ 50-39 win over Curtis of Tacoma, Zimmerman found herself cornered by a recruiter from a community college. She spoke with him for a few minutes and took a brochure, but Zimmerman didn’t make any commitments.
She said two Division I colleges have contacted her, as well as a handful of D-II schools and community colleges.
But that recruitment is nothing like what Zimmerman’s teammate has seen this season. Kirsten Thompson, a 6-foot-6 junior, has college scouts from all over the country recruiting her. University of Washington coach June Daugherty was at the Bearcats’ opener on Wednesday.
“There are a lot of them around, especially at games like this,” Thompson said of the college recruiters at the tournament. “You just have to play your game. You know they’re coming, but you can’t let it affect you.”
While every Pac-10 school would probably love a commitment from someone like Thompson, she’s ignoring the recruiters for now.
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I haven’t really thought about it. I don’t have any idea where I might go.”
While some high school juniors make oral commitments, most wait until their senior seasons to sign a national letter-of-intent.
Gotta be the shoes: Mountlake Terrace junior Adrian Blake made an unconventional fashion statement in Thursday’s loss to Central Kitsap. And then he found an even more unique cure for his shooting woes.
Blake donned two different shoes – one black, one white – at the beginning of the game. He wasn’t having much luck shooting the ball, so he switched shoes with teammate Tyler Hjort late in the first quarter. Hjort’s all-white shoes might have played a part in Blake hitting back-to-back 3-pointers during a key spurt early in the fourth quarter.
“I got a lot more traction, and my shots started to fall,” said Blake, who finished the game with nine points on 3-for-13 shooting.
Hurt, but not forgotten: When Monroe freshman Chelsea Drivstuen injured her ankle in a district game, the Bearcats had to carry on without her.
But to show that their teammate is not forgotten, the Bearcats scribbled Drivstuen’s jersey number (40) on their right shoulders.
Drivstuen averaged 2.4 points per game for Monroe this season. Her older sister, junior Dani, is a starter for the Bearcats.
Big city slump?: Mountlake Terrace’s loss means that no boys teams from Snohomish County are still alive in the tournament.
But there’s no shame in that this year. Two of the state’s biggest cities, Seattle and Spokane, have no schools remaining in the boys’ bracket.
Defending champion Franklin lost a consolation game to get eliminated Thursday morning, while Spokane didn’t even have a single team qualify for the tournament.
Lesson learned: The Snohomish girls basketball team learned last season that winning a North Division title is no guarantee of a trip to state playoffs. After a team full of sophomores missed out in 2003, the Panthers allowed no such letdown this season.
“Last year it was really hard, because we all felt that we were going to go,” said junior guard Tara Angell, who hit several key 3-point shots at state as a freshman to help the Panthers place eighth in 2002. “When we didn’t make it, we were really upset. We wanted to get back this year.”
Last year’s team finished the regular season with a solid 17-3 record, but Panthers coach Ken Roberts knew the road to state wouldn’t be easy. The Panthers had two chances to clinch a state berth, but suffered losses to Oak Harbor and Monroe.
“I was hoping we would make it down here with a bunch of sophomores,” Roberts said. “But, we didn’t.”
Snohomish allowed no chance for that to happen this year. The Panthers lost during the regular season only to No. 1 Prairie and Monroe, which was still alive for fifth place in the state heading into today’s games. The Panthers won 18 regular-season games by an average score of 63-34. They won three straight district playoff games by 18 or more points apiece.
“We wanted to get here so bad this year,” said Daesha Henderson, a sophomore who starts along with four juniors. “We worked our butts off every day in practice and game-in, game-out.”
Snohomish is unlikely to be a one-hit wonder. There is only one senior on the team, and leading scorer Amanda Best is a freshman.
WIAA time zone: Panthers fans who arrived at 7 p.m. for the scheduled time of the Snohomish girls game might have wondered if something was wrong with their watches. At 7 p.m., the Garfield-University game preceding the Snohomish contest had not even reached halftime, despite the fact that none of the prior games had gone into overtime. It happens nearly every year at Washington Interscholastic Activities Association state basketball tournaments, which attempt to follow an unrealistic time allotment of only 1 hour and 30 minutes for six of the first seven games the first two days.
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