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| Published March 9, 2004 :: Home |
A Devil of a First
Game East Valley's Red Devils have endured a year of injuries, sickness and tragedy and open defense of their 2003 Class 2A girls state basketball title at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday with a most familiar opponent, unbeaten Blaine. The Red Devils beat Blaine, 50-43, in overtime in the semifinals last year en route to winning the title by beating four teams by a total of 26 points. The Red Devils are back in the SunDome, where they have won 11 straight state games and 16 of their last 18 state tournament contests, with a chance to become the first team -- the classification was created in 1998 -- to win three straight 2A titles. Their well-earned reputation as an escape artist will be challenged by Blaine on Wednesday just as the EVHS team has been challenged by a variety of issues in the last year. In June 2003, EV coach Jack Cleveland died of a heart attack. Key players missed games with injuries and senior leader Jamie Sharp missed five games with an illness -- including a key league matchup with Connell. Just when the pieces were finally coming together, the entire school was rocked by the death last weekend of the grandfather of Isaiah Mata, a guard on the boys team. "That event last weekend brought a lot of emotion back to the surface," EV coach Robi Raab said. "I was just so impressed by how our kids handled that." Now the team has turned its attention to how to handle Blaine. Jessica Summers leads Blaine in scoring, nearly 21 points a game, and rebounding with 14.5 per contest. "Summers is a terrific basketball player," Raab said. "She is their key inside, she's a terrific defender and she blocks shots." The three-time North Cascades League MVP was held to 10 points in the semifinal loss last year. However, La Donna Downs, the 6-foot-2 EVHS post who had a large part in that, graduated. Blaine comes in with a plethora of offensive weapons, but it is the Borderite defense that concerns Raab. Blaine didn't allow an opponent to score more than 50 points and held 18 of 22 opponents to 40 points or less. And as was the case last year, much of the work is bring done by reserves from the 2002/2003 champions. Angie Mullen leads the team in scoring at 9.7 points a game, with Tana Stickney right behind at 8.5 per contest. The Devils shoot 33 percent as a team from behind the 3-point stripe. Jessica Huntington led the team with 39 percent from behind the arc, hitting 26 of 67. Brittney Alexieff is a 3-point sharpshooter off the bench, hitting 23 of 66 attempts.
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