T O U R N E Y T O W N  ARCHIVES

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Each of the Goats has a wrap on his calf — a wristband for some, tape for others — with the letters “JH” emblazoned on it.

“Everybody knew we had to do something to commemorate it, to honor him in some way,” said senior guard Payson West, who scored 10 points Friday as Chelan beat Connell 50-49 to move into Saturday’s trophy round. “Not having him here, it’s like losing one of our best players.”

Harris is at Wenatchee’s Central Washington Hospital, where he’s being treated for viral encephalitis. Players noticed something Saturday morning at a shootaround prior to the Goats’ CWAC district final against Cashmere — which, coincidentally, will be Chelan’s opponent in Saturday’s fourth-seventh place game.

“He just didn’t seem like himself,” West said of the district shootaround.

So Harris’ wife took him the hospital, where he has been since.

The players visited Harris in the hospital on Tuesday on their way down to Yakima, a visit that West said “helped us a lot. It was real inspirational.”

Harris — whose condition reportedly has been improving — was able to listen by cell phone to a radio broadcast of the Chelan girls’ first-round victory, but not to the boys’ game.

“They had the first girls’ game on for him, but his blood pressure started to rise,” West said. “Who knows what it would have done if he’d been listening to our game.”

But a healthy Harris would have enjoyed watching or even hearing the Goats’ thriller against Connell. “Oh yeah,” West said with a big grin. “He loves these kind of games.”

SPECIAL DELIVERY: Things were a little distracting at two Arlington family homes in Connell in the days before the Eagles’ girls team came to Yakima for the state tournament. Jeff Arlington — assistant coach to his father, Dwight — and his wife Monica were expecting a baby. It wasn’t due until March 18, but on Monday afternoon, Tyler Cody Arlington made his arrival.

“Better now than Wednesday,” Dwight Arlington said on the day of the birth.

Since then, Jeff Arlington has been going back and forth between Yakima and Connell to spend time with his wife and child, and Thursday night was the first one he’d spent in Yakima.

“Basically, he (Jeff) says all the baby does is cry and sleep, and get up to eat and then goes back to crying and sleeping,” Dwight Arlington said. “I tell him, ‘Son, your life will never be the same again.’ ”

TOUGH GUY: Ty Willemsen’s line in the Nooksack Valley stat-sheet for Friday’s 30-28 victory over Steilacoom may not have looked like much — two points, one assist, one rebound in 24-plus minutes — but the impact of his mere presence in the game was huge.

The Pioneers’ senior leader suffered a pretty seriously sprained ankle in Wednesday’s loss to Medical Lake and he hadn’t played Thursday. At 6 a.m. Friday morning, Willemsen was at Westside Physical Therapy, where sports medicine experts were working on his ankle. He arrived prior to Nooksack Valley’s 9 a.m. loser-out game and told the coaches he’d be suiting up.

“That was big for us when he came into the locker room and he was ready to go,” assistant coach Scott Nunamaker said. “That was a boost for our kids — they were looking forward to that.

“He couldn’t even warm up. He could just go.”

Willemsen couldn’t even go all that much, but he did come through in the clutch, sinking a shot from the right wing that tied the game 26-26 as the Pioneers came from behind for the victory.

That Nooksack Valley will take home a trophy is more than a little surprising, considering that the 2003 championship team graduated all five starters. “If you’d have seen us at the beginning of the year, you’d never have believed this,” Nunamaker said. “At the jamboree, we couldn’t get the ball across halfcourt.”

HE’S BAAAAACK: The best player in the history of the Class A state tournament (from which the 2A ranks were born) is in the house this week. That’s Richard “Handshake” Hanson, the Blaine star who played 40 years ago and yet still holds eight tournament records — including most points (135) and rebounds (98) in a single tournament.

The shy but affable Hanson doesn’t come to tournaments often, but he has enjoyed this one, and was impressed with the overachieving East Valley boys.

“They’re so poised, no matter what they’re doing,” Hansen said Friday morning. “Their coach has them playing so well, and they’re fun to watch.”

Did that mean he would be rooting for them that afternoon?

“I root for a good basketball game,” he said. “I like to see guys playing hard. Like Blaine, they’re on the floor, they’re going after the ball. You can tell that the losers are not ready to get themselves dirty, they’re not willing to get on the floor, diving for the ball.”

SHE’S BAAAAAACK: SunDome basketball fans got a special treat Friday — the return of the Woodland Beaver. And not just anybody in a beaver costume, but the one many state-tourney fans consider the only real Beaver — Sonia Beckwith, who charmed fans two years ago with her outgoing nature and lively on-court dancing during timeouts that turned the bulky mascot into a big-time smile producer.

Beckwith, now a sophomore at Clark Community College, wanted to come to the tournament when Woodland’s girls made it to the tournament last year, but she couldn’t work it with her class schedule. This year both of her alma mater’s boys and girls teams made here, so she found a way and the time to get here, and climbed inside that familiar beaver outfit.

Woodland has had other Beaver mascots since her at Woodland, but Beckwith is still the gold standard. Why?

“A lot of people are shy,” Beckwith said with a shrug. But not her, though.

“Hey, you’re in the costume,” she smiled. “It’s not like people can see you and know who you are.”

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