By SCOTT SANDSBERRY and PAUL SHUGAR
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

It’s not all in the goggles for Seattle Christian. It only seems that way.

The Warrior boys are in the Class 1A semifinals again after a one-year absence, having beaten Zillah and LaConner. SC coach Roger DeBoer had Lasik eye surgery a couple of weeks ago, and he promised his team he’d agree to wear his goggles for the first day of the state tournament if the Warriors managed to get through the three loser-out games they faced in the Tri-District’s bizarre tournament format.

The Warriors got in, and not only did DeBoer wear the goggles on opening day, so did all of his assistants. After they jumped out to a big lead on the Leopards, Zillah’s coaches came out saying they wanted to borrow the goggles — because, clearly, they were working.

Zillah’s boys played in their 100th state-tournament game in school history Thursday. LaConner’s boys will join that three-digit club Friday, though most of the Braves’ tournament history came in the Class B ranks. This is only their third state tourney, and their victory in the opening round over Colfax was La Conner’s first after going 0-for-2 in 2000 and 2002.

Lexie Black of Coupeville got six more blocks on Thursday, giving her 110 for the year, tying her own school record set last year. The 6-foot-2 senior has 270 in her career. ... The Colfax girls are having to play the rest of the tournament without senior Katie Burns, the team’s third-leading scorer (8.2), after an MRI of a knee injury suffered during the district tournament revealed revealed the injury to more serious than originally believed.

Thursday’s most misleading score — Seattle Christian’s 62-38 win over feisty (and quite undersized) LaConner, which led for much of the first half and trailed by just six points going into the final period. The final eight minutes, though, were ugly and one-sided, to the tune of 20-2.

The “Teaming Up” program, in which participating teams (and sometimes cheerleaders and even bands) visit local elementary and middle schools to speak on the importance of academics and sportsmanship in athletics, is getting bigger every year. This year, 30 of the 36 participating teams were scheduled to make trips, and another six cheerleader/band groups were, meaning 36 groups of young kids got to hear from the big kids. On Thursday alone, 17 groups were out meeting the youngsters — including four contingents (boys and girls teams, band and cheerleaders) from Bellevue Christian.

Winner of the “Malcolm in the Middle” Look-alike Contest, which we just created: Toledo sophomore Jason King, who probably gets that all the time.

Single-game heroes come out of the woodwork at tournament time, and Granger needed center Eric Paul to do just that to upset Oroville. Averaging only five points per game this season and not one of the team's rebound leaders, the 6-foot-3 senior posted a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Everybody know about the Napavine and Colfax pep bands, but Zillah's group is drawing attention as it pulls double-duty for the boys and girls teams. With both Leopard teams winning their loser-out games on Thursday, Zillah's pep squad with provide a wakeup call for the crowd as the boys and girls play at 9 and 10:30 a.m., respectively.