The first step on those darting drives into the lane wasn’t there. The intensity in the eyes was dulled, and the quick feet on the press were, well, not quick. The competitive edge and heart that made the East Valley Red Devils such a special girls basketball team in 2006 had, by Saturday evening, drained away with the previous night’s emotional semifinal defeat.

The Devils had come into the Class 2A state girls tournament to play for a state championship. Playing for third, well ...

“It’s pretty hard,” Arianna Mohsenian said after East Valley’s 46-41 loss to Pullman in game for third and sixth places. “I don’t know ... it just didn’t come to us. Both nights in a row ... just unlucky.”

The Red Devils had beaten Pullman by 13 points in the SunDome in December, but on Saturday the Greyhounds came out with more intensity from the outset.

“We just relaxed. I think for the first time in the tournament, our kids relaxed and just played,” said Pullman coach Mike Davis, whose team finished with a 21-5 record. “We’ve been playing, defensively, our game for four days, but this is the first day we’ve played our game offensively as well.”

The Red Devils, on the other hand, looked anything like the team that had won its first 25 games of the season before losing by two points to Lynden Christian in Friday’s late semifinal. Evidence of their emotional hangover was everywhere — most notably in Pullman’s 17-7 first-half domination of the “want to” category, rebounding.

“It’s tough to expend as much energy as they did (Friday night),” Devils coach Robi Raab said. “Emotionally, they were just drained. And to get down early” — by as much as 26-16 in the second quarter — “they start to feel a little frustrated, their shots aren’t falling ... hey, it’s tough.”

Pullman overcame its own semifinal disappointment with everybody contributing. While Brittnee Lee was scoring half of East Valley’s 22 first-half points, eight Greyhounds scored between two and six points as Pullman built a 30-22 halftime lead. Jamie Thornton, the Greyhounds’ 6-foot-3 post, hit three of her four first-half shots as Pullman shot 13-for-23 over the first two periods.

“These kids have a unique ability to regroup,” Mike Davis said of his Greyhounds. “I think the girls made the decision that they were going to play well, one way or the other.

The Red Devils came out with some semblance of renewed intensity in the second half and pulled to within 31-30 late in the third period. But a 7-1 Pullman run, capped by Kelli Davis’ 3-pointer, pushed the lead up to seven points. And although East Valley closed to within two points, 40-38, with two minutes remaining, that was as close as it got.

Davis understood well just what his team had accomplished. “Hey: East Valley was just a superb team and is a great program,” he said. “It’s a privilege to be playing them on the last day of the state tournament, because you know you’ve done some things.”

But although Davis said his team looked at Saturday’s third-place game as “kind of the public-school championship,” a reference to the two private schools in the title game, it was obvious East Valley wasn’t the same team it had been before its Friday defeat. Lee scored 18 points, most of it on her 5-for-10 shooting on 3-pointers. But Tana Stickney managed only three shots from the field (hitting two), Mohsenian missed all 11 of her shots and the Devils simply grabbed too few of their many misses.

“They just had nothing in their tank after the other night,” Raab said. “They wanted a chance to play for No. 1 — but so did Pullman, and they had their legs and the energy going. They did a better job of bouncing back than we did.”

Pullman -- Druffel 2-2 1-1 6, Davis 2-4 0-0 6, Byers 0-0 0-2 0, Hinrichs 1-3 4-5 7, Spangenberg 0-0 0-0 0, Garro 2-7 0-0 4, Thomas 1-3 0-0 2, Smith 4-10 0-1 8, Albrecht 2-2 0-1 4, Thornton 4-5 1-2 9. Totals 18-36 6-12 46.
East Valley (Yakima) -- Alexieff 1-2 0-0 2, Mohsenian 0-11 3-4 3, Lee 5-11 3-5 18, Price 0-2 0-0 0, Valicoff 0-0 0-0 0, Jacobs 1-1 0-0 2, Huck 2-5 0-0 6, Huntington 1-8 0-0 2, Stickney 2-3 4-4 8, Dorsett 0-0 0-0 0, Reid 0-0 0-0 0, Walker 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 12-43 10-13 41.
Pullman	15	15	3	13	--	46
East Valley (Yakima)	13	9	8	11	--	41
3-point goals--P 4-9 (Davis 2-3, Druffel 1-1, Hinrichs 1-1, Garro 0-4), EV 7-26 (Lee 5-10, Huck 2-5, Price 0-1, Mohsenian 0-3, Huntington 0-7). Rebounds--P 32 (Thornton 6, Garro 5), EV 22 (Huntington 6, Stickney 5). Assists--P 10 (Smith 4), EV 8 (Huntington 5). Steals--P 6 (Garro 3), EV 10 (Lee 4). Blocked shots--P 4 (Thornton 2), EV 2. Fouled out--None. Total fouls--P 10, EV 14. Technical fouls--None. Turnovers--P 15, EV 9.