One of the popular coaching cliches in basketball is that, at the end of a close game, good players get tired ... but big players are still big.

At the end of Seattle Christian’s opening-round 54-41 victory over Zillah, Bryon Jansen — who was 6-foot-6 to begin with — got even bigger. Certainly, at least, he played bigger.

After Zillah trimmed the Warriors’ lead, once as large as 16 points, down to just three with 6 1/2 minutes remaining, Jansen essentially took over the game. Over the next 90 seconds, he blocked shots on back-to-back Zillah possessions, made a sensational assist pass to Sean Malloy, sank a free throw ... and sank the Leopards’ hopes. He ignited a 10-0 Seattle Christian victory that put the game out of reach.

“They were obviously making a run when he did that,” Warriors senior guard John Finn said. “Bryon’s our presence in the middle. When he can focus on holding his position and keeping his hands up, he can be great under there. He’s really long — we call him ‘Gangles’ — and he’s one of our senior leaders. When we’re coming down the stretch, we need him to come through.”

Jansen did all of that. He got all four of his blocks in the second half, made a team-high five assists and a pair of steals. The fact that he scored only three points made not a bit of difference. He WAS the difference.

“The thing about Bryon is he just loves to play basketball, and guys who love to play basketball have no problem doing all the little things it takes to win,” Warriors coach Roger DeBoer said. “Bryon knows he’s our last line of defense. We knew, with their quickness, that they were going to get by us and they were going to come at him.”

The Leopards’ problem, though, was they were coming from too far behind. Zillah (19-5) suffered through a seven-minute scoreless stretch spanning the first and second periods, while Seattle Christian (19-5) scored 18 unanswered points to take a 22-9 lead.

“They’re big and they do a good job with their zone defense,” said Zillah coach Doug Burge. “We knew that coming in and knew what we had to do, but couldn’t get it done. If you can’t score, you can’t press and you can’t get into an up-tempo game. Basically, all the things we hoped wouldn’t happen ... happened.”

Meanwhile, everything went well for Seattle Christian. Brent Kassebaum, who averaged just 2.1 points during the season, shot 5-for-6 and scored 15 points, while Trevor Petersen scored 19 points and pulled down seven rebounds.

Zillah guard Duran Torrez managed 18 points, but his 5-for-19 shooting was indicative of the type of day the Leopards had — they were 12-for-48 (25 percent) from the field, and were outrebounded 35-19.

“All you have to do is look at our rebounding and our shooting percentage,” Burge said, “to see why we lost.”

Zillah’s downfall wasn’t for lack of effort, though, and DeBoer came away singing Torrez’s praises.

“He does it on both ends,” the Warriors coach said. “People look at how many points a guy scores, but this guy plays big and does it at both ends. The defensive job he did on Finn (who went 2-for-10 from the field) was unbelievable — that was one all-stater on another all-stater. And he made sure John never got squared up with a good look at the basket. I admire him (Torrez) — on both ends of the court.”

On both ends of the court, though, it was definitely the Warriors’ day.

Seattle Christian -- Lang 0-0 0-0 0, Hoover 0-0 0-0 0, Kassebaum 5-6 2-3 15, Maloy 4-4 1-3 9, Saner 0-0 0-0 0, Finn 2-10 1-2 5, Rablin 0-0 0-0 0, Myers 1-2 0-0 3, Mickelson 0-1 0-0 0, Jansen 1-5 1-4 3, Sangder 0-0 0-0 0, Petersen 5-11 8-9 19. Totals 18-39 13-21 54.
Zillah -- Martinez 0-3 0-0 0, Gonzalez 0-0 0-0 0, Gasseling 0-0 0-0 0, Ross 1-2 0-0 2, Inions 0-0 0-0 0, Torrez 5-19 5-6 18, Moritz 1-4 0-0 3, Rico 0-2 4-4 4, Jones 2-12 2-2 7, Winters 1-1 0-0 2, Collins 0-0 0-0 0, Wiley 2-5 1-3 5. Totals 12-48 12-15 41.
Seattle Christian	19	7	10	18	--	54
Zillah	7	9	14	11	--	41
3-point goals--SC 5-11 (Kassebaum 3-4, Myers 1-2, Petersen 1-4, Mickelson 0-1), Z 5-16 (Torrez 3-6, Moritz 1-3, Jones 1-4, Wiley 0-1, Martinez 0-2). Rebounds--SC 35 (Jansen 8, Petersen 7), Z 19 (Wiley 6). Assists--SC 12 (Jansen 5), Z 4. Steals--SC 4 (Jansen 2), Z 4. Blocked shots--SC 6 (Jansen 4), Z 3 (Wiley 2). Fouled out --None. Total fouls--SC 15, Z 18. Technical fouls--None. Turnovers--SC 11, Z 8.