Cougars rout No. 2 Scotties by 18 points

By ROGER UNDERWOOD
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Would you believe it wasn't even close?

In an upset reminiscent of a Class 1A state tournament shocker 38 years ago, White Swan routed No. 2-ranked Freeman 58-40 in a quarterfinal game Thursday night in the SunDome.

There was one big difference, however, between this game, which put the 18-7 Cougars opposite Bellevue Christian in a tournament semifinal Friday at 9 p.m., and White Swan's defeat of then-No. 1-ranked Ilwaco in 1967: That one went down to the wire.

"I know all about that game," said an elated Ray Funk, who played for White Swan in the 1980s before becoming the Cougars' coach. "I've listened to the audio tape of it.

"Before this game, we all just tried to tell ourselves, 'Why not us? Why not now?' "

Why not, indeed.

A tall, talented and deep Freeman team that had won its previous 20 games, for example, had no answer.

"We're down to our last two days together," said 6-foot-5 senior Chris Jones, who scored a team-high 18 points despite missing some of the second quarter due to foul trouble. "We wanted to make it special."

Said Kenneth Fiander, who recovered from a badly injured right knee earlier this season only to sprain his left ankle during Wednesday night's win over Winlock, "We just had to work hard -- we had to work harder than they did."

About his ankle?

"Before the game is hurt really bad. Now I don't even feel it."

Fiander finished with 10 points while Jermaine Aguilar totaled 12. Fiander also grabbed six rebounds as the Cougars beat Freeman 27-18 on the backboards and he and Aguilar grabbed three steals each.

Emotionally charged from the start, White Swan controlled the tempo with a scrappy, trapping 2-3 zone defense and by spreading the Scotties' own 2-3 alignment on offense.

While Freeman shot only 32 percent, the Cougars nailed 51 percent of their field goals, including a white-hot 69 percent in the second half.

They led 14-10 after one quarter and were up 22-14 with 2:27 left in the half despite Jones having picked up his third foul at the 6:46 mark of the second period.

Freeman scrambled to within 22-18 at the break, but Jones, starting the second half, scored inside and punctuated a 10-0 White Swan run iwht three successive 3-pointers.

And with 3:47 to play in the third quarter, the Cougars had a 34-18 lead, had Freeman back on its heels and had their own throng of fans screaming their approval.

"Chris Jones," Funk said, shaking his head, "has just always had the ability to make big shots. And I can't think of any bigger than those. They were huge."

The Scotties, behind the 22 points of smooth-shooting left-hander Malcolm Soelberg, got to within 34-24 at 1:54 of the period, but Jones' hanging 15-footer ignited a 12-2 White Swan burst that carried to the 4:40 mark of the fourth quarter and, for all practical purposes, sealed the deal.

The Cougars' biggest lead was 55-32 with 2:31 to play and Funk was even afforded the luxury of allowing reserves to finish up.

"Two years in a row we'd come here and got nothing," Jones said. "Now we've won two games and we're sure to get a trophy."

Said Funk, "Last summer, before Kenny got hurt and we had a few other things happen, I really believed this team could become a state semifinalist.

"But to be honest, I didn't think about anything quite like this."

The 1967 Cougars? They made it all the way to the state championship game in the University of Puget Sound Fieldhouse in Tacoma before losing to Prosser.