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| Published March 10, 2004 :: Home 
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Basketball Court Once Again Becomes Happy Place for EV It didn’t make everything OK for Isaiah Mata, because nothing that happened in the SunDome on Wednesday could have. Nothing so trivial as a basketball game, of course, could compensate for the loss of a grandfather. But on this occasion, Mata and members of his extended family at least took a collective stride forward in the healing process. After upsetting Steilacoom 54-42 in a first-round Class 2A state tournament game, Mata and the East Valley Red Devils were allowed to smile a little wider, hug a little harder and, if the mood struck them, shed happy tears instead of sad ones. That athletic victories are rarely needed to soothe souls scarred by death is a good thing. And it was a very good thing that East Valley, hours after its two-time defending state champion girls had battered previously undefeated Blaine, played with poise and purpose enough to beat a team that had won 22 of 23 games. “It was good to get out and play,” said Mata, whose grandfather, Martin Schwartzenberger, died in an auto accident last Saturday. The tragedy caused cancellation of the Red Devils’ final CWAC District game in Wenatchee. “Sometimes when I’m really stressed out, it’s helpful to play basketball like this. It’s, like, my happy place.” And Mata made it happier with his play. Not only did the 5-foot-9 senior score 11 points, second high on the team to Tyler Price’s 17, he calmed East Valley during the game’s rockiest stretch. With a 13-point lead having melted to one early in the fourth quarter, Mata was fouled and stepped to the line for the first shot of a one-and-one. To this point, free throws had been a Red Devil sore spot, since they had missed their last five and seven of their previous eight.
But Mata made both shots. Less than a minute later he
made two more and seconds after that two more still. Mata finished 2 for 4 from the field, 7 for 8 from the line, had six assists, three rebounds and a steal. He was awarded a sportsmanship medallion afterward, too. “I felt like I had to play the best I was capable of playing for my grandfather,” Mata said. “He never missed any of my games — football, basketball or soccer. Not one. And I knew he was watching this game, too.” As high schoolers often do, East Valley’s players wore various messages on the tape around their ankles, their socks or on their shoes. On Wednesday they wore black wrist bands with “GRANDFATHER” on them. “Everybody on the team has helped me with this,” Mata said. “We’ve done a lot of talking together, mostly about basketball and normal guy talk. “The girls team has helped, too. There have been so many people in East Valley helping me through this.” And Mata has helped them help. “He really moneyed up for us,” his coach, Steve Elder, said of Mata’s play Wednesday. “He was big. It was helpful for all of us to have a game today, to have some normalcy and get back in a routine.” It helped, too, that they won. Several coaches and players from Connell, the team East Valley was to have played last Saturday, offered postgame congratulations. The Red Devils, in turn, wished the Eagles luck. And this time you sensed that it wasn’t your standard just-being-nice type of behavior, that perhaps a bond had been forged out of a terrible event. To be sure, East Valley has been a community burdened by more than its share of heartache. Jack Cleveland, the girls coach, died of a heart attack last June and years earlier one of football coach Barry Reifel’s daughters perished in a car wreck. “We needed something like this to happen,” Elder said. “It’s been a wonderful day for East Valley.” And less than a week after an especially dark occurrence, a red-letter day for Isaiah Mata the Red Devils.
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