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Published Wednesday, March 3, 2004
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And he was the winning coach. Imagine, then, the mood of Zillah's Tony Fritz. "I told the statistician out there he couldn't count," Fritz said, eyeing the totals accompanying his Leopards' 47-36 loss in the first round of the Class 1A state girls basketball tournament Wednesday. "We had way more turnovers than that." Regardless, the numbers clearly did not add up for Zillah, 21-3, which has lost back-to-back games for the first time this season and must face Cedar Park Christian, 18-8, at 10:30 Thursday morning in a loser-out game. Baerlocher's Bulldogs, 24-4, will play 20-5 Burbank, a team Zillah has beaten twice this season, in a 5:30 p.m. quarterfinal.
The Leopards had rolled to a 21-1 record and held a
six-game winning streak before falling to Warden 47-43 in the SCAC District
championship game last weekend. The Leopards shot 27 percent (which was better than Colfax's 25 percent) and were listed with 24 turnovers, a total vehemently disputed by Fritz. First-day jitters? Sure, Fritz conceded, nervousness is part of state tournament life. But for the problems to persist for the entire game was both surprising and disappointing to the first-year coach. "I expected it early," Fritz said. "We do have some young guards. And give Colfax credit, they're a good team. They're big, physical and they pushed us around and got us out of our game." Especially on the backboards, where the Bulldogs compiled a 52-40 advantage, including 23-8 at the offensive end. "That's good in a way," Baerlocher said, "because it showed we were aggressive. But it was bad in that we obviously missed a lot of shots." Nonetheless, Colfax led 25-12 late in the second quarter and 25-14 at the break. Zillah continued to be effective with its 2-3 zone defense, however, and moved to within 26-22 on a three-point play by Jennifer Griffin with 1:51 left in the third quarter.
The Bulldogs then built their lead back to 35-24 with
7:02 to play, only to have Zillah reduce the margin to 35-28 at 6:18 on
another three-point play by Griffin. Griffin and reserve Rondelle Guthrie scored 11 points each to lead Zillah and point guard Cherie Perrault was the Leopards' top rebounder with six. Allie Swan, a 5-foot-11 senior, led Colfax with 10 points while also grabbing nine rebounds, 6-0 Natalie Shaw totaled 14 boards and Jenna Vuletich added nine points. "The thing is, we started out the same way last year and I voiced my displeasure about the girls' play at halftime," said Baerlocher, whose squad survived for a 43-33 first-round conquest of Winlock en route to a fourth-place finish. "But Jenna Vuletich, who's one of our quietest girls, said, 'Don't worry coach. We always play like this on the first day.' So after that I just kept telling myself, 'Jenna said, Jenna said.' I just hope we play better tomorrow." As Fritz does with his squad, which could bring home a fifth-place trophy with three straight wins.
"We still have something to play for," he said. "That's
what we have to refocus on. We still want to play well and with pride to
represent the community of Zillah, which gave both teams a wonderful sendoff
this morning. That was one of the neatest things I've ever seen in my life."
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