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By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

The Class 1A state tournament wasn't even half over before word was circulating all over the Yakima Valley SunDome that the 2A tourney had already had a huge development.

Nooksack Valley is toast, so the talk went.
 
Done? They didn't make it?

No, but they've lost one of their best players.

Which one? The scorer? The defensive wizard? The good forward?

It's somebody scoring 16 points, that's what I heard.

Oh no, that's gotta be Jason Heutink. No, no, he's scoring more like 20. Gotta be Kyle Vermeulen, he's their key guy. Or else it's Phil Silves, the kid they lost last year.

Yeah, they're toast.

No. The Pioneers (21-1) are not toast. The team that spent most of the season as the top-ranked team in Class 2A and finished No. 2 behind unbeaten Hoquiam, which didn't lose anybody from its lineup. They still rank, along with Pullman, Lakeside and Hoquiam -- which the Pioneers could well meet in the second round -- as a leading candidate for the big trophy.

They just had themselves quite a scare on the eve of the Northwest District championship game against Lynden Christian.

In Nooksack Valley's Thursday afternoon practice, Silves -- who had missed the entire 2001-2002 season with a knee injury suffered in a preseason practice -- went down to the floor.

It looked serious. Silves was rolling on the floor, squirming in pain, trying not to try as he pulled his practice jersey over his head.

"You could have heard a pin drop in that gym for about two or three minutes," said Pioneers coach Bill Kelly, whose Cashmere teams won four Class A titles and who is in his first, and likely only, year at the Nooksack Valley helm.

"(Senior guard) Heutink came over and said, 'Coach, this is exactly the way Phil acted when it happened last year,' " Kelly said.

"I knelt down by (Silves), and I told him, 'I got my CPR card this year, and I'm ready to help you any way I can. But if you need mouth-to-mouth, Phil, I'm sorry, you're gonna die.' "

That got a laugh out of Silves, who, as it turned out, had wrenched not the same knee he'd torn up last year, but the other one. This one had "just crumpled on him," Kelly said, but after Silves was helped off the floor and able to ice his knee, the talented 6-2 senior was able to get some movement into the leg.

The knee still hurt when Silves left for home, and Kelly told him to call later that evening if it was still in pain. Silves didn't call, and the next day he scored 15 points in the Pioneers' 72-57 victory over Lynden Christian.

By that time, though, Kelly had mentioned it to somebody who mentioned it to somebody else and the rumors were flying at the SunDome and around the state's 2A teams.

But the Pioneers still have one of the state's best defenses, led by the athletic, 6-1 Vermeulen (who also scores at a 13.9 clip), a sensational guard in Heutink (17.7), and a deep lineup that will also include the steady Silves (15.0 points and a team-leading 6.5 rebounds).
 
"They're loaded," said Meridian coach Sean Shook, whose team open with an intriguing first-round game Wednesday morning against CWAC champion Cashmere. "It wouldn't surprise me to see Nooksack playing late Saturday night."

For that to happen, the Pioneers will have to get by upstart Chimacum, playing in a state tournament for the first time since 1979; then beat the winner between unbeaten Hoquiam (23-0) and Othello, a gifted group whose underwhelming 15-9 record may be the tournament's most misleading set of numbers; and then, probably, Lakeside, which beat the Pioneers in a summer tournament last year at Blaine.

"We've seen Lakeside before. We know they have two really good players in (Greg) Smith and (Jared) Tikker," said Hoquiam coach Brian Grun. "We know Nooksack Valley is very good, and I think the CWAC, whoever they send out of that district is always very good."

Grun's team has three starters who average in double figures, but the team revolves around its league MVP, who just happens to score less than those other three -- Tim Grun, the coach's nephew, a 6-1 guard who does many of the little things that don't make the scorebook.

"He makes us go," Brian Grun said. "He's the guy we get the ball to and he distributes it to the rest of the kids. He's a great defensive player and a tireless worker out there. He's just the gas that makes us go."

In the other bracket -- the "early" bracket -- the best of the bunch may well be Pullman (20-3), which has arguably the best player in the tournament in 6-4 leaper Fred Peete, who averages 25.6 points.

But the Greyhounds will have plenty of challengers: Steilacoom (21-5), with its excellent guards, which could see Pullman in the quarterfinals; Cashmere, with versatile Jared Brandeberry; and Lynden Christian, with its intriguing mix of seasoned seniors and precocious freshmen.

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