Connell coach Jerry Groenig, center, talks with his team during the 2004 Class 2A tournament at the SunDome.   JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic file

By SCOTT SANDSBERRY and ROGER UNDERWOOD
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

With the trappings of the basketball world all around him — shouting fans behind him, bouncing balls before him, P.A. sounds all around him — Jerry Groenig was in a different world altogether. He was immersed in the wondrous expressions of the grandson on his lap.

Little Jackson is only 6 weeks old, but he’s already been to six games this year — “all Connell games,” says Lynn May, Jackson’s mom and Groenig’s daughter. She says it with a wry little grin, a reference to the fact that her husband, Mark, teaches and coaches at Naches Valley.

But Jerry Groenig is finishing up a four-decade career in coaching, and for the last two seasons he’s doing that at Connell. At 67, he has sat on the benches of four of the Yakima Valley’s high school teams and its only pro team. He’s loved it all. But it’s time, and he knows it.

“The biggest thing is I don’t have the energy I used to have,” says Groenig, who had already undergone open-heart and arterial surgeries prior to being coaxed out of retirement to take over the Connell boys’ program. But still, he has found the energy for a daily 97-mile-one-way commute from his home in Sunnyside to coach this group of Eagles that he considers very special.

“I know I’m not going to coach any more, I know that,” says Groenig, who has known for more than a year that this season would be his last. “But I will miss kids. All these years, it’s been about involvement with kids. And this year’s team has been a tremendous group. What a way to go out.

“They’re good students, for the most part from farm families, from a school where there’s discipline. And they’re just great kids. Great work ethic, great respect ethic.”

Groenig gets emotional when he thinks about this season coming to a close, and relished that his team won 70-60 over Vashon on Thursday, because it means he gets to extend his time with the players he loves so much. And he knows he probably won’t be going to any games — at least, perhaps, until Jackson is playing in them. In the four years between his previous coaching stint at East Valley and taking over in Connell, he went to maybe two games. Total.

“I think I know myself enough that if I went and watched, the bug would bite,” he says. “So I stayed away on purpose.”

Now he’s just hoping for a chance to stay around for just one more day. That would mean a trophy for his players. And one more day with his players.

Reviews for Chimacum sophomore Steven Gray continued to be a combination of admiration and amazement Thursday, especially from Nooksack Valley coach Bill Kelly after Gray scored 31 points in a 53-46 win over Kelly's Pioneers in a Class 2A state quarterfinal in the SunDome.

"I didn't think a one-man outfit could beat you," Kleey said, "but I guess I was wrong. He's a good kid, he really is. The kid just went off on us."

In addition to his scoring, Gray logged assists via two long passes to teammate Mike Casal that resulted in back-to-back baskets late in the game when Nooksack was pressing full court.

"We tried to pressure him and get the ball out of his hands," Kelly said, "but he beat us over the top. He makes the other kids on that team better."

There was a facet of the game as related to the 6-foot-2 Gray, who came into the tournament averaging 27.2 points and who dropped 36 on Ridgefield in an opening-day win.

"I told our kids before the game," Kelly said, "that any time a guy goes off for 36 on the first day, you've got to be careful. Officials will sometimes protect the kid."

Kelly said the Cowboys set numerous moving screens in an effort to get Gray open and that violations of such plays were not called.

"The one guy who T-d up Scott Parrish (Grandview's coach during the Greyhounds' first-day win)," Kelly said, "I mentioned something to him and all he did was glare at me, so I didn't say anything else."

Former Central Washington standout Tyler Mitchell is coaching at Nooksack Valley, his alma mater.

The 6-foot-7 Mitchell, who completed his eligibility with the Wildcats last season, serves as Nooksack's C squad, or freshman, coach under head man Bill Kelly and assistant Scott Nunamaker.

"I'm having a blast," Mitchell said prior to Thursday night's quarterfinal game with Chimacum. "I have two brothers (Kyle, a 6-1 senior, and Chris, a 6-6 sophomore) on the team. They're both starters. And it's great just to listen to Bill talk about the game and tell stories."

Asked how his own team did, Tyler Mitchell said, "We had some kids called up to the JV and we struggled some. But we won a couple of games and had a lot of fun."

To avoid having both Connell teams playing at the same time, Games 17 and 18 in the girls’ consolation bracket are being changed. So the Eagle boys will be playing Forks at 9 a.m. on the SunDome’s north court, with the Eagle girls facing Steilacoom at 10:30 on the south court. ... That also means East Valley fans will have to be in the Dome early, at 9 a.m. for the Red Devils’ game against Woodland.

The Forks boys are within one victory of earning only the second state-tournament trophy in school history. The first, a sixth-place in the old Class A, was a sixth place. If the Spartans manage to get by Connell on Friday, they would play for fifth place, with eighth as a nice consolation.

Mount Baker sophomore Pete Galbraith comes from a large extended family, and they support both the Mounties and their boy Pete. Pete’s mom, Nancy, has four sisters, three of whom were in the stands with their families. In all, Pete’s personal cheering section included no fewer than 29 rooters during Thursday’s consolation-bracket loss to Whatcom County rival Lynden Christian. Nancy also has four brothers, none of whom could make it, or the SunDome might have needed another quick expansion to hold them all.

If that band during Thursday’s Woodland-La Center girls game sounded awful big and impressive, that’s because it was two bands. The school’s bands had hoped to perform together during the district tournament, but their two teams didn’t end up meeting during that tourney. So, on Thursday, there they were, the black-shirt La Center band members and the green Woodland kids, under the joint direction of Woodland band director Paul Cline and La Center’s Greg Cooper.

Perhaps the most valuable player in uniform on Thursday was the one who couldn’t play — Tanya Baker, the La Center senior guard who suffered a season-ending knee injury during district but dressed out Thursday for the official tournament team picture. The Wildcats were 20-3 with the 20.9-scoring Baker in the lineup. Without her? 0-and-2, including a 66-63 loss Thursday in Woodland — which had split two close games with the Wildcats with Baker on the floor.

And speaking of La Center, Wildcat girls coach Herm Van Weerdhuizen isn’t the girls coach who’s hobbling from an Achilles injury incurred during a team practice, as noted in Thursday’s 2A notebook. That was King’s trainer Daunte Gouge, who was on the opposite bench in Wednesday’s opening-round matchup. Van Weerdhuizen was on crutches because a forklift accident.