[ t o u r n e y t o w n . c o m -- Brewster 74, Napavine 39]

Brewster -- Phillips 2-6 1-3 7, M. Gebbers 0-2 0-0 0, H. Gebbers 4-8 0-1 9, Brown 2-4 0-0 6, Rios 0-0 0-0 0, Hill 4-9 5-6 13, Michel 0-2 2-2 2, Hobart 1-3 2-2 4, Pendergraft 5-12 10-10 20, Vallance 0-1 0-0 0, Evans 3-7 1-2 7, Taylor 3-6 0-0 6. Totals 24-60 21-26 74.

Napavine -- Kaut 0-0 0-0 0, Godsey 0-9 0-0 0, Wilson 0-0 1-2 1, Morris 6-8 0-0 17, Sturza 5-9 1-4 12, Werner 0-0 0-0 0, Griffith 0-0 0-0 0, Hieronymus 0-2 1-2 1, La. Bluhm 1-3 0-0 2, Lo. Bluhm 0-9 2-4 2, J. Murphy 2-3 0-0 4, B. Murphy 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 14-43 5-12 39.

Brewster

Napavine

3-point goals--B 5-18 (Brown 2-3, Phillips 2-4, H. Gebbers 1-3, M. Gebbers 0-1, Hill 0-1, Taylor 0-1, Michel 0-2, Pendergraft 0-3), N 6-16 (Morris 5-7, Sturza 1-3, Lo. Bluhm 0-1, La. Bluhm 0-2, Godsey 0-3). Rebounds--B 46 (Hill 11, Taylor 8, Pendergraft 8), N 19 (Lo. Bluhm 5). Assists--B 21 (M. Gebbers 8), N 9 (Lo. Bluhm 4). Steals--B 6 (Taylor 3), N 1. Blocked shots--B 2, N 2. Fouled out--Lo. Bluhm. Total fouls--B 11, N 21. Technical fouls--None. Turnovers--B 7, N 13.

By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

By the time the Brewster-Napavine Class 1A boys semifinal got under way Friday evening, one side of the SunDome was largely clothed in Bear-backing red. The Tigers’ somewhat less populated side was dotted with orange and black.

Perhaps just black would have been more appropriate.

In a game that was close for as long as it took both teams to remove their warmups, the top-ranked, undefeated Brewster Bears disposed of a good Napavine team with such practiced ease that it seemed less like a state semifinal than a fast-break drill. As lopsided as the 74-39 final tally looks, even that doesn’t capture the totality of the Bears’ domination.

Consider this: Brewster was within one point of the 2003 tournament’s largest winning margin ... before the middle of the second quarter.

“It feels great when you’re going like that,” said guard Ryne Phillips, who hit two three-pointers during a 24-2 Bear blitz over seven minutes. “Guys are getting open, setting good picks, hitting their shots, blocking out, playing good defense. Everything’s going the way it’s supposed to. It’s real fun when it’s like that.”

“We usually have a lapse now and then, but that was a heck of a start,” Bears coach Tim Taylor said after his team’s 26th consecutive victory. “They came out focused, and the defense was excellent. That’s a good thing. I don’t want to have to coach too much.”

With a 36-6 lead barely 11 minutes into the game, Taylor’s only real coaching decisions involved how quickly he wanted to pull his starters to rest them up for Saturday night’s championship showdown against Seattle Christian.

They got lots of rest. No Brewster starter played as much as 22 minutes, yet the Bears owned the boards (46-19) and had 21 assists against only seven turnovers, while holding Napavine to 25 percent shooting in the first half.

And this wasn’t a case of a mediocre opponent, because Napavine is not close to that. “We played them in AAU last summer — they’re plenty tough,” freshman guard Michael Taylor said of the Tigers (22-4).

“That’s a very good team,” Phillips said. “I think we just took them out of their game with our defense and rebounding.” Taylor echoed that thought: “They’re very talented. I just thought our defense stifled them. To hold the Godsey kid (Michael Godsey, averaging nearly 17 points) to no points, I mean ...”

To the Tigers’ credit, they never stopped competing — matching Brewster nearly point-for-point after that early demolition — but the thing was, they simply couldn’t compete with the Bears’ power, speed and finesse. The 2002 1A player of the year, David Pendergraft, led Brewster with 20 points and eight rebounds, athletic forward Andy Hill added 13 points and 11 boards, and nine Bears made it into the scoring column.

Josh Morris and Tyson Sturza led Napavine with 17 and 12 points, respectively, with Morris shooting a sizzling 5-for-7 from beyond the 3-point stripe. But all of his points came after that 36-6 start, and by that time the Bears’ defense had already determined the outcome.

“That’s what we’ve been emphasizing the last two weeks, defense and blocking out,” Hill said. “And it’s been working.”

On Friday, of course, everything was working.

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