On the opening day of the Class 1A state girls tournament, all Amanda Marchand did for Lake Roosevelt was score 14 points on 7-for-8 shooting, make assists on three more baskets and miss the tournament record for most steals in a game by just one with her nine picks. She was on the move.

But she’d made an even bigger move two months earlier — when she moved back to Lake Roosevelt.

Marchand, a gifted senior guard, had lived in Lake Roosevelt for her sophomore and junior years, in the latter helping the Raiders to their first state-tournament appearance in nearly two decades and a seventh-place trophy.

Over the summer, though, her family moved to Okanogan — a Caribou Trail League rival of the Raiders — and began playing there.

“That was a bummer,” Raiders coach Billy Nicholson said. “But that’s what we talk about — we play with five out there, not one.”

In Marchand’s absence, Lauren Barnaby-Barry, Heather Circle and Melissa Menza got more playing time than they might have, and each stepped up her game; in their 58-43 state-opening thumping of Burbank, the trio would combine for 16 points and 13 rebounds.

Over the Christmas break, Marchand’s family moved back into the Lake Roosevelt district. On the day she checked in at the office, athletic director Brad Wilson called Nicholson (who doesn’t work for the school district) to say,
“Guess what?”

Marchand didn’t play in the Raiders’ next three games while she was cleared by District 6, but being back turned Lake Roosevelt from promising to outstanding. The Raiders have won 12 straight with Marchand in the lineup.

“The depth difference is huge,” said Nicholson, who can now rest of one of his big four — Rowena St. Pierre, Lachelle Ives, Jessica Loe and Marchand — at any time and still have three prolific scorers and steal-makers on the court.
And the Raiders need their rest, because, as Nicholson said, “We like to run up and down the floor.”

JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME: Jordan DeSimone hasn’t been a major contributor all year for Ilwaco; only a sophomore, he bounced back and forth between the varsity and JV and only played in four games for the Fishermen. He didn’t score a point for the varsity all year.

On Wednesday, though, he scored a huge basket for Ilwaco — a 3-pointer with eight seconds left in a 62-24 loss to Brewster. Why was it huge? Because had he missed, the Fishermen were about to set a tournament record for the lowest
team point total.

But Granger fans can take solice. Napavine scored 19 points in the Wednesday nightcap to break the Spartans' 2002 record of 22 points.

PSYCHED OUT? NO, PSYCHED UP: The last time they played Napavine, in the 2005 tournament, Bellevue Christian’s girls became a bug on the Tigers’ windshield. In their 43-21 quarterfinal loss, everything fell apart. “We’ve watched tape from that game, and we couldn’t believe how badly we played,” recalled
Vikings center Melissa Reich. “It was like we couldn’t even recognize ourselves when we watched it.”

So who did the Vikings draw for Wednesday’s opener? Napavine. And they loved it.

“We were definitely excited to play them again,” said Reich, who accepted a scholarship in November to play next year for Seattle Pacific University. “We were excited to get a chance to show who we really are. Last year our biggest
problem was against the press. We’d get in trouble and make turnovers. Now our guards are doing a great job against it.”

On Wednesday, Napavine still managed 10 steals ... but the Vikings cruised, 44-31, behind Reich’s dominating 20-point, 17-rebound performance.

A SMART MAN’S GAME: Until this week, the Overlake boys had never competed in a state basketball tournament before, but they were at center court during the championship game in the SunDome only last year — at halftime. That’s when they give out the trophy for the sport’s academic state champion team, which
the Owls were last year.

This year they have an opportunity to play for a title on the court, too. They face Zillah in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

“That was their whole goal,” said Overlake coach John Wiley. “They got there (for the academic presentation) and thought, hey, we need to be on the other end and playing in games like this.”

QUICK JUMPERS: Kirk Westerfield, who officiated Wednesday’s Zillah-Cedar Park Christian game, played defensive tackle at Washington State University. But before that he
was a two-sport standout at Kiona-Benton, where he helped the Bears reach the 1987 state championship game — only to run into Naches Valley, which had beaten Ki-Be three times already, and made it four. ... Amazing stat of the day: Brewster’s boys having zero turnovers in the first half of their victory over Ilwaco. On the other end of the spectrum: Bush committing 18 in the first half against Freeman (which had only four) in the Scotties’ one-sided triumph.

River View coach Roger Sonderland’s undersized team earned its trip to state on its long-range shooting, and he knows his difficult adjusting to the SunDome has been for some shooters. “That’s why I’m switching up our (pre-game)
warmups,” he said. “We’re just going to shoot 3-pointers. Why have ’em shooting layups?” The strategy wasn’t a huge success, though, as the Panthers managed just two baskets — one of them a trey — in the opening quarter.

White Pass’s girls all wear the sort of body armor — bulky-looking ankle and knee pads you’d expect to see on a field hockey field. While it may look odd, it’s effective. “Our girls have worn these graphite ankle braces, and we haven’t had a sprained ankle in 10 years,” said coach Tom Kelly after his team’s opening-round win over Warden. “And the knee pads, that’s so the girls can go to the floor.” After watching the Panthers diving on the floor for every loose ball, a coach of a non-qualified team noted, “I’m thinking maybe we should get some for our girls, just to put that (all-out diving effort) idea in their heads.”