MILES CAPLES is in his 15th year of coaching CASHMERE, and the 2006 state tournament — his 10th with the Bulldogs — will be his last.

“The kids have known all year this is my last year,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed it. That’s the way I wanted to it, and it’s been a great group of kids. My wife thinks I’ll end up getting back into (coaching), but I’ve done it for 28 years.”

He began coaching an AAU team while in high school and was an assistant coach at both the high school and college level before graduating from Washington State University.

Wednesday, Caples’ Bulldogs — led by the coach’s son, senior MATT CAPLES — will face a team coached by another of the state’s coaching elite, STEILACOOM and GARY WUSTERBARTH. And although the two have been tournament regulars, their teams had never faced each other.

“I’m just glad I’ll get to coach against him,” says Wusterbarth. “I’ve been here for 21 years, so a couple of old codgers are going to step on the court. I really respect him. He runs a great program. It’ll be great to be playing him in his last year.”

EATONVILLE senior SARAH PAINTER wasn’t the Nisqually League MVP for nothing. In addition to averaging 14 points and eight rebounds and being a standout defender, she has played every position but center this year and, says coach DAVINA SERDAHL, even at 5-foot-8 she’d be strong enough to play there if that’s what the Cruisers needed.

The FORKS boys got a scare the week before its district tournament when JORDAN JUSTUS, the gifted senior point guard and son of coach SCOTT JUSTUS, collapsed at practice. After batteries of tests for various serious possibilities — “He’s been to heart specialists from Forks to Seattle over the past week,” Scott Justus says — everything came back just fine. “We’re thinking maybe dehydration,” Scott says of Jordan, who has also battled a nagging knee problem that has him playing in a brace.

A lot of other 2A tournament players faced injury issues this year. KELLEE NEAL of EPHRATA missed five league games with a stress fracture and, even though still slowed by it, had a monster game against NACHES VALLEY in district play: 22 points, 13 rebounds, five assists and two charges taken. The KING’S girls went with a seven-player for much of the season after lengthy injuries to KAILEY TRAUTMANN (shoulder) and LAUREN THOMPSON (knee), both of whom are back. The VASHON ISLAND boys had to go without double-digit scorer SHANE DAVIS for half the year because of a stress fracture in his foot.

WOODLAND doesn’t have a single player averaging as much as 11 points per game, but the Beaver girls have balance: Eight of them have scored 100 or more points this year.

Beware driving the lane against VASHON ISLAND center JENNIFER OSGOOD. She holds several school blocks records, including single season, career and game (14). ... STEILACOOM may be the most inexperienced team in the boys field. Two post players, juniors ALEX COLLINS and CHIP REESE, are in their first year of organized basketball.

The last time both the boys and girls teams from FORKS made it to state was in 1983, when boys coach SCOTT JUSTUS was the leading scorer for the Spartan boys and his wife, SHANNAN, was playing for the girls. Now JORDAN JUSTUS is one of his dad’s top players; Jordan’s sister ALEXA is a stellar freshman on the girls squad, on which the top scorer is their cousin MADISON JUSTUS, whose mother was a teammate of Shannan’s on that 1983 team.

This story has been updated to remove erroneous information that appeared in the originally published version.