Torrez pours in 15 to lead Leopards' 45-38 win

By PAUL SHUGAR
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

The coaches of the Zillah and Burbank High School boys basketball teams had a little side game of poker going on while their teams battled in the SunDome on Friday.

Zillah coach Doug Burge’s hand said he had a seven-point lead and he was going to stall out the clock with Burbank content to sit back in its 2-3 zone.

Burbank coach D.J. Traver obviously thought Burge was bluffing and calmly watched the last
2 1/2 minutes of the third quarter tick away with his team not moving.

Traver ended up making the wrong call and Burge made him pay.

The Coyotes (17-10) waited until there were 7 minutes and 5 seconds left in the game before they team came out of the zone and started pressuring and fouling the Leopards. But Zillah (20-5) calmly hit 9 of its last 15 free throws to secure a 45-38 win and a chance to play SCAC West rival Granger (17-10), which defeated Winlock 64-55, in the fifth/eighth-place game of the 1A state tournament at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The Leopards defeated the Spartans in both meetings earlier this season by an average of 17 points.

“After we got the basketball I figured they would come out (of the zone) because they were behind,” said Burge of how his team ran off the last 2 1/2 minutes of the third quarter with his players standing around halfcourt staring at each other. “So I just told our guys to sit back and make our possession the last one of the third quarter. The worst case scenario was that we didn’t score at the end, which we didn’t.”

“I have to hand it to them that their team has a lot of patience. That was a gutsy coaching call.”

Zillah’s players also were surprised to see Burbank just content to run out the clock when they were only down seven.

“I though for the most they would wait 30 seconds,” Zillah guard Duran Torrez said. “But after they sat in their zone for a minute, I figured they had to do something. But they just sat there and waited for us to run our offense.

“I just enjoyed the down time. It was a nice for me to get a break.”

Despite leading his team with 15 points, Torrez and the rest of Zillah’s starters did enjoy a nice rest with the bench picking up the slack with 26 points.

With forward Andy Jones, who averaged 14.2 points per game this season, struggling with 0 points, forward Jesse Wiley led the bench’s effort with 14 points and nine rebounds.

“We have a deep team and a lot of us is just team,” said Wiley, who is usually a starter but is coming off the bench to help keep his early game energy from getting him in foul trouble. “If one guy doesn’t have it, someone else is going to step up for us.”

Wiley should have passed some of his early energy onto his teammates, who came out flat in the first quarter and managed to build only a 12-10 lead thanks to Wiley’s four points and strong play around the boards. But Torrez blew the game open the second quarter with back-to-to back 3-pointers and guard Chris Gasseling hit another right before the buzzer to give Zillah a 27-19 lead at halftime.

The Leopards traded baskets with Burbank for most of the third quarter, but after they cut it to seven with 2:30 left in the game, Burge decided to quite fighting the zone and stall his way to a state-tournament trophy.

But even when the Coyotes extended their zone and started fouling they could not cut back into Zillah’s lead. The closest they got was when Pete Gordon’s two free throws with 4:41 brought his team within five 38-33. Guard Kyle Haworth led the way for Burbank with 16 points and Gordon had 10. Rebounding against the taller Wiley and Zillah’s stalling tactics allowed the Coyotes to grab only 13 rebounds as a team compared to Zillah’s 23.

The win allows Zillah to play in its 102nd state tournament game and add to its 12 places in 29 tournament entries. But just getting a trophy is the last thing the Leopards want.

“It feels excellent to play on Saturday because we haven’t done that in a few years,” Burge said. “I told the guys that the trophy that shows the most character is the fifth-place trophy because you have to really battle to get it.”