BRITTANY DEN HOED plays basketball as if the court were on fire, always at hyper-speed, panting as if she were 20 miles into a marathon, and grimacing, wincing and occasionally limping as if people had been bouncing her, not the basketball, on the hardwood.

And, very often, the latter is practically the case. The Sunnyside Christian senior almost certainly leads the girls tournament — if not the entire basketball world — in floor burns. She’ll hit the floor in a rebound battle ... diving after a loose ball ... taking a charge. She’s a human bruise.

“Oh, it’s terrible,” she laughed after hauling down a team-high 10 rebounds and scoring 13 points in the Knights’ 60-41 semifinal victory over Colton. “My knees are so ugly during basketball season. I have (floor) burns on my shoulders, my knees, my hips.”

She’s had a couple of bad ankle sprains, one during her freshman year and the other ankle her junior year. “But nothing serious,” she says, shrugging. “Other than that, it’s mostly just deep bruises.”

Anybody who has ever had a deep muscle bruise, though, knows how much they can ache during physical exertion, and on Friday den Hoed spent a little floor time off the court as well — with a team trainer flexing her aching leg.

And moments later, she was back in the game.

“She’s tough — tough as nails,” coach Al Smeenk said. “That’s a typical game for her. She just goes and goes and goes, 110 percent all the time. The funny thing about her is, I actually have to tell her to slow down, slow down.”

“Brittany is the firecracker of our team,” said teammate Jacqui Roberts. “She has more energy than you can imagine.”

And — in season, anyway — uglier knees.

SHORT JUMPERS: After starting what they hope will be a new school tradition in clinching the program’s first state trophy in school history, the LUMMI BLACKHAWKS fell back on an old tradition for basketball teams in Yakima. “We’re going to Miner’s!” coach Darren Johnson grinned. Apparently, Disneyland is a little out of the school’s celebration budget range. ... Lummi was one of four boys teams clinching the first trophy in their schools’ history, along with TRI-CITIES PREP, LIBERTY CHRISTIAN and finalist TULALIP HERITAGE. On the girls side, ENTIAT and COLTON are each playing on trophy day in their first state appearance.

Tulalip Heritage shooters have hit 27 3-pointers through the first three days, on pace to break the all-time Class B state-tourney record of 35. ... SUNNYSIDE CHRISTIAN'S GIRLS have won every size of state-tournament trophy but two: third and the one they want to get today against Sprague-Harrington. (No, not second.)

ON CLASS 1B CLASS: For the people who put on the this week’s tournament (and, yes, for the people who report on it), the Class 1B community has been a study in, well, class. Tournament director GENE ROSTVOLD says crowds have been respectful, responsive to direction, courteous, well-mannered. “It’s been a real pleasure,” Rostvold says.

For evidence of this touch of class, look no further than LIBERTY CHRISTIAN’s supporters. After watching their team lose an early 9-point lead and trail for the rest of Friday’s semifinal game, this crowd wasted almost no effort berating officials and spent the entire game being positive, simply rooting on their boys. Speaking for the ink-stained wretches who often suffer through crowds of bellowing, boorish, poor losers, listening to Liberty Christian’s classy fans was, yes, a real pleasure.