Lest any members of the Old Boys Club wish to taunt Suzanne DePoe-Thompson for having the audacity to be a woman official calling a foul on one of their boys, save your breath: She won't hear you any more than she hears any ref-baiting.

"You can't listen to that stuff," says DePoe-Thompson, who is working this week's 1A boys tournament, making her the first female official to officiate a boys state tournament at the SunDome.

She's one of several women working boys games in the Seattle-based Pacific Northwest Basketball Officials Association, and she also works girls games for the Seattle Officials for Women's Basketball. This is her third state tournament as an official, but her first on the boys side after working the 2003 1A girls in Yakima and the 2005 4A girls in Tacoma.

"For me, it's just a different style of play," says DePoe-Thompson, a Native American enrolled with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz (Oregon). "I can't say one's better than the other, but I enjoy working boys basketball."

DePoe-Thompson credits her husband, Joe Thompson — a Div. I college official who this week has been working the West Coast Conference Tournament in Portland — with being her mentor. Good idea: College officials won't listen to you screaming at them, either.

THE INTERNATIONAL GAME: Exchange student Torben Wendt came all the way from Germany for a year in Onalaska, but that's nothing. His parents came over for just two days.

The 6-foot-4 senior became the team's starting center and became amazed at how big the crowds are at Loggers' games.

"He plays for a low-level club team in Germany, and he says there might be five people in the stands at their games," Onalaska coach Dennis Bower says. "He came over here and saw what it's like at our games, and his eyes were like this." (Yes, you got it: wide open.)

So when the Loggers qualified for state, Wendt's parents decided to fly over from Germany to see what it was like. And because exchange students aren't supposed to see or speak to their parents over the year — to prevent homesickness — the Wendts actually had to get permission from the exchange-student program just to come see Torben play.

THE STREAK GOES ON: Seattle Christian's boys didn't make it here this year, but coach Roger DeBoer did, keeping his streak of 25 straight Class 1A tournaments — as player, coach and spectator — alive. But it almost ended.

DeBoer's wife, Jill, is 38 1/2 weeks pregnant, and naturally she wasn't excited about the prospect of hubby going across the state to watch hoops. But at the last minute she decided, OK, let's go, and the DeBoers came over from a couple of days.

DeBoer nearly made it here officially. His team came within one close call — one ruled a charge, not a blocking foul with four seconds remaining — of knocking out King's in district play and possibly earning a state berth. That might have posed a real family problem — the possibility of DeBoer's team needing to be in Yakima for four days, since as many as six teams in the Western Bi-District were trophy-worthy this year, when he was needed at home.

SHORT JUMPERS: On Thursday, the SunDome and Yakima Sports Commission hosted their 800th WIAA state basketball tournament game, a number accrued through 16 total 1A, 2A and 1B tournaments. ... Burbank's girls had a 11-0 lead over Bellevue Christian before BC even got off its second field-goal attempt. The game's final margin? Those same 11 points. ... Time of the first dunk of tournament season at the SunDome: Not until 5:07 p.m. on the second day of the second tournament, when 6-foot-8 Nooksack Valley senior Chris Mitchell took a drive-and-dish pass from Rich Skillman and flushed it to give his team a 10-point lead with 3:40 to go in a 39-30 victory over Cashmere. He got another dunk in the game's final 12 seconds. ... Pretty: The one-turnover first half turned in by the Toledo boys Thursday. Also pretty: Seattle Academy's nine-turnover game in the Cardinal girls' loser-out win over Kalama. Pretty ugly: The 46 combined turnovers in Thursday's girls game between Seattle Christian and White Salmon.