By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Tyson Sturza had never hit a buzzer-beater in his career before Friday. And, on Friday, he thought he had already missed his chance.

The Napavine senior missed a wide-open 3-pointer from the top of the key with seven seconds to go and his team trailing Freeman by two points. But when teammate Bill Stenerson got the rebound and the Tigers got a timeout with 1.8 seconds remaining, setting the stage for a last-gasp try

Sturza even called the play — something the Tigers call "Downtown," which is pretty much where Sturza's shot came from in the deep left corner.

"I said, let's go Downtown," Sturza said of the final timeout. "We practice it every day, game situation. Loren (Bluhm, the inbounds passer) had good patience, waiting until right when I came off the screen, until I went further down (toward the baseline)."

Sturza did a quick pump-fake and shot, a split-second before the buzzer went — and thought he'd missed.

"I hate the corner," he said, noting that he'd thought his previous 3-pointer from the top of the key was going to go in. "It felt better than the second one. I thought the second one was short."

Instead, it was just long enough to stretch Napavine's season one more day.

SHORT JUMPERS:

Not only did 6-foot-2 Coupeville center Lexie Black set a tournament single-game record with her 10 blocks against Zillah — a performance that left the shell-shocked Leopards passing up seemingly open 15-footers the instant they saw her coming — the rest of the Wolves got another four, thus setting a team single-game mark as well.

More from the stifling-defense department: Lake Roosevelt's girls made 17 steals in a single half against Bellevue Christian on Friday, six more field goal attempts than the Raiders permitted the Vikings over that span. The Raiders finished with 26 steals, three short of the tourney mark, though Jessica Loe tied the individual record with 10.

After the Freeman girls had an ugly shooting performance in their opening game here, one of the first people to offer words of encouragement to Scotties coach Matt Gregg was none other than the coach of the team Freeman will face in today's final. "I told him we didn't shoot much better than last year all tournament long," Colfax coach Cory Baerlocher said. All the Bulldogs got to show for that mediocre shooting — and sensational defense — was the 2004 championship trophy.

In addition to helping his team to the boys final, Brewster junior Michael Taylor was a superhero of sorts off the court on Friday. He dressed up as Buzz Lightyear to make a birthday party special for 3-year-old Cade Gebbers, who's the son of Johnny Gebbers, who's the older brother of Hawkins Gebbers, who happens to be Michael's teammate. A note of reference: Hawkins' 41 points on Thursday is still a distant second for family honors to Johnny, who once scored 61 points in a game for Brewster.

Toughest roads to where they wanted to go? How about Napavine's boys playing the top two ranked teams back-to-back, Liberty Bell's girls, facing No. 3 Burbank and No. 1 Freeman on the first two days, and White Swan, facing top-rated Bellevue Christian right after beating No. 2 Freeman. "When you have to play the No. 1-rated team (Bellevue Christian) in the quarterfinals and then play the No. 2 team (Freeman) in a loser-out," Napavine coach Rex Stanley said, "that's a gut check."