Zillah, White Swan, Granger want to erase
poor showings at 2004 state tourney

By PAUL SHUGAR
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

They're back and they're ready to make sure the mistakes of last season don't get repeated.

Duran Torrez paces Zillah's offensive attack with 16.7 points a game.   JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic file

Zillah, White Swan and Granger all return for the second straight year representing the SCAC West in the Class 1A state tournament when it begins Wednesday at the SunDome. But the last thing any of the three teams want to do is repeat 2004's finishes.

Zillah was the only team to win a game, 47-36, against Winlock before the Leopards lost to Northwest Christian in the second round and then fell to Toledo to go home without a trophy. Both the Cougars and the Spartans lost their first two games to go home empty-handed as well.

After making the tourney for the 14th consecutive time, Zillah (19-4), which has placed 12 times and won two state championships in its 29 state tournament entries, will play Seattle Christian (18-5) in the first round at 9 a.m.

The Warriors, who took second place in 2003, should provide the SCAC district champions with what Zillah coach Doug Burge expects to be one of the best first-round matchups in the tournament. He hopes the athleticism of guard Duran Torrez (16.7 points per game) and forward Andy Jones (14.2 ppg) will match up well with Seattle Christian's speedy players.

One thing the Leopards won't struggle with is waking up for the game. This will be the third time they will play at 9 a.m. in the past four years. Zillah got to sleep in for a little bit in 2003 when they played the 10:30 a.m. game.

"We're pretty used to (playing early), whether we like it or not," Burge said. "We're probably better off playing this game being in Yakima because we don't have to stay in a hotel and we're not sleeping in strange beds. In theory that sounds good, but you can throw that all out because it's tourney time."

If Zillah takes care of business, a matchup against two-time defending state champion Brewster or Toledo, which defeated a short-handed Bears squad earlier in the season and placed fourth at state last year, is possible in the semifinals.

White Swan (16-7), which is yet to win a game after making the state tournament five of the past six years, will get a shot at a little payback against Winlock (16-8) at 7:30 p.m. The Cardinals defeated the Cougars 54-51 in the first round of the 2003 tournament, when White Swan was the SCAC's No. 1 seed.

In 2004, Winlock fell to Zillah in the first round before battling through the losers' bracket to take eighth place.

White Swan coach Ray Funk hopes the experience of seniors Kenneth Fiander and Chris Jones will help the Cougars land their first win at the state tournament.

Jones (20 ppg) and Fiander (13 ppg) both battled injuries earlier this season but look healthy and ready to play after losing to Zillah in the district championship game. Jones missed some time with a bad back and Fiander has been recovering from a knee injury all season.

"Really we just have to focus on ourselves more than our opponent and try to think about what we have to do to play well instead of focusing on playing so and so in the next round," Funk said. "We just have to take things one possession and one quarter at a time and definitely just focus on ourselves and keep our focus on very short-term goals."

Granger (15-9) definitely will need to be dialed in on its first game. The Spartans join White Swan in the bottom of the bracket and draw a tough first-round challenge against Bellevue Christian (20-2) -- the No. 1 ranked team in Class 1A -- at 5:30 p.m.

"I told our guys that we probably don't want to play Freeman, we probably don't want Bellevue and we probably want to stay away from Toledo," Granger coach David Gibb said. "We won't play anybody in our own league, so I told our guys to hang in there and wait and see.

"When I looked at the bracket (Sunday), I was like 'Oh, no.' "

Against the size and depth of BC, Gibb said his team's only hope is to slow things down and make the Vikings play a halfcourt game. With only three seniors on the team, he will rely heavily on junior guard Edward Castro (11.3 ppg) and forward Sean Golob (9.7 ppg), who is one of the Spartans' taller players at 6-foot-3.

"Nobody expected us to even go to district since we lost a lot of guys from last year," Gibb said. "But we've worked hard and I talked to all the players and told them who we got and they're excited. They want to make the most of an opportunity to play against a team of that caliber."