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Published Saturday, March 8, 2003
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No. 1
and No. 2 All Over Again By SCOTT SANDSBERRY YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC The first time Brewster faced Seattle Christian this year, neither team was ready for prime time. “That was horrible. We were fumbling around,” recalls Bears starting freshman guard Michael Taylor. “We were actually down, weren’t we?” Yep. Actually behind by 15 points, 31-16, in the second quarter of a Dec. 14 game at the University of Washington’s Hec Edmundson Pavilion. It was the second game of the year for Brewster, the fourth for Seattle Christian. The Bears ultimately came back to win 63-55, but at the time neither team looked like championship material. Now, both of them are. But only one of them gets to ... be. Tonight’s rematch is for the Class 1A state championship, and it pits precisely the two teams that should be there. Brewster (27-0) has been ranked No. 1 all year. Seattle Christian (25-1) has been No. 2 all year. And considering how impressive each has looked in this tournament, one can presume that Saturday’s title tilt will bear little resemblance to the first meeting. “The first time, both teams struggled,” says Brewster all-stater David Pendergraft. “We had balls go through our hands ... it was pretty ugly.” “We shot ourselves in the foot,” Brewster coach Tim Taylor says of that early deficit against Seattle Christian. “We were nervous. I think we came out a little too hopped-up, probably. Once we settled down, we took control of the situation.” In some ways, the teams are quite similar. Both teams have a talented big man — the 6-foot-5 Pendergraft, a 25.5-point scorer for Brewster this season, and Seattle Christian’s 6-8 Rob Peterson (16.6). Both have an extremely athletic, high-flying forward — the Warriors’ 6-3 Nick Lindseth (16.5), MVP of the Chinook League, and Brewster’s 6-4 Andy Hill (10.6), neither of whom needs any kind of a run-up to dunk. Both have guards that can rain 3-pointers and hit 40 percent and better all night long. Both are outrebounding their opponents by a huge margin. Both have active, turnover-creating defenses. Both have ballhandlers who simply don’t commit many turnovers. What fans will get in Saturday’s championship game is a showdown very rarely seen: the best teams making it past the state-tournament obstacles of bad luck, bad bounces, injuries, illnesses and overachieving underdogs ... all the way to the finals. Not since 1990, when Grandview beat Ilwaco in a final between unbeatens, has the title game been played between the top two ranked teams with no more than a single loss between them. It’s a classic showdown. And, even better, it’s a rematch. “It wasn’t our best game, and I know it wasn’t theirs,” Pendergraft says of the first encounter. “Everybody’s been looking for this rematch, and we have been, too. The guys on that team are good friends of ours; there’s a great relationship between the two teams. It’s going to be a great game.” “It’s not like we were at the top of our game the first time,” says Hill, who on Dec. 14 was playing only his second game in a Brewster uniform after moving from Okanogan. “I’m sure they’ve come a long way, too.” Yep. All the way to the championship game. ©
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