King's guard Caitlyn Faidley slaps hands with her teammates during introductions Thursday in the SunDome.   JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic

King's returns to familiar territory in 2A ranks


By PAUL SHUGAR
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

The King’s girls basketball team doesn’t look at this year's move from Class 1A to 2A as a step up because it’s more of a return to the same old thing.

The move left the Knights playing teams that they used to play before many moved to Class 2A and left King’s behind in 1A back in 1998. So while Knight coach Eric Rasmussen had to learn a few new coaches’ names and their styles, the move ended up being easy to make and at just the right time.

“Most of the teams on our schedule were pretty familiar,” Rasmussen said. “We had a lot of kids back with a lot of experience, so we thought it was a great time to make the move.”

Obviously it was with King’s going 24-1 and undefeated in the state of Washington with a schedule that includes Class 3A and 4A schools. The Knights’ only loss was a 70-62 setback against Alameda, Calif., during a Christmas tournament and they are the top-ranked team still chasing a state title in the SunDome this week.

The No. 1 team in the state, East Valley, fell 36-30 in the first round to Riverside to end their championship hopes. No. 2 King’s rolled past seventh-ranked La Center 58-40 in the first round and defeated Ephrata 66-33 on Thursday to move into the final four.

The Knights will play in the semifinals at 7:30 p.m. Friday to try and get back to their first state championship game since they won the Class 1A tournament in 1997.

King’s will have a long way to go to build its 2A tradition up to the level of its 1A tournament history. The Knights have been to state 14 times, won a trophy nine times and they were fourth in the SunDome in 2004.

And while Rasmussen will not say his team is the favorite at this year’s tournament with the Red Devils in the losers’ bracket, he does admit this team has some special qualities. One of those being the team’s tough defense and intense full-court pressure, which forced Ephrata into 19 turnovers in the first half on Thursday.

“We feel that we are pretty athletic and that we have a lot of kids that are quick and fast and that is key to our defense and our style,” Rasmussen said. “(All the girls) help us play uptempo and they are all factors.”

At the center of King’s quick play is 5-foot-9 junior guard Sara Mosiman, who averaged 20.9 points per game this season and scored 21 on Ephrata after playing only 18 minutes.

But Mosiman is much more than a basketball player. She also plays volleyball and throws javelin for the track team so well that she is drawing interest from colleges in those sports as well as basketball.

And while she waits to decide what sport she will do in college, she definitely does not take all the credit for how King’s has performed this year in basketball.

“Really just everybody on this team is a leader,” Mosiman said. “If we didn’t have one person, I don’t know, it’d be a lot different.”

The one thing the Knights benefit from is a talented gene pool. Forward Hayley Zevenbergen is the niece of former Washington basketball player Phil Zevenbergen, who played for the Huskies from 1986-87. Junior guard Caitlyn Faidley is the little sister of former King’s standout Chris Faidley, who holds the record for most total career points at the 1A tournament with 282 and holds the single-game record for 3-pointers made in a game with eight.

Chris currently is a redshirt freshman on the Seattle Pacific men's basketball team. He plans to be back in the SunDome on Saturday if King’s makes it to the state championship game and he might not be alone on the trip from Seattle.

Guard Sarah Strand’s older sister, Rachel Strand, plays for the Falcon women's basketball team.

But good genetic material is not the only reason the Knights play so well together. Caitlyn Faidley said the trip to California helped the team bond and play some quicker teams. Something King’s has not seen a lot of so far this season.

“We learned we had to get back quickly,” Caitlyn Faidley said. “That team was quicker than us and we usually don’t face quicker teams than us. We learned we needed to get back every play because every play can make a difference.”

Basketball is still basketball to the Knights. The only thing different about this year is the classification number on the trophy.