Loaded bracket doesn't distract Knights from 1st-round foe

By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

When Class 1B coaches around the state looked at the state tournament bracket released by the WIAA on Sunday, they oohed and aahed about all of the power in the upper bracket.

Not Sunnyside Christian coach Dean Wagenaar. Although his reigning state champions are also in that top-heavy bracket, Wagenaar had to look no further than his team’s opening-round foe, Odessa, to generate a nervous gulp.

“We’ve got a tough one,” Wagenaar said, knowing that Odessa — though owning an underwhelming 11-10 record — is better than its 2007 tournament team that opened with a 20-point loss to Sunnyside Christian and went two-and-out.

Last year’s Tigers were missing burly 6-foot-3 center Travis Todd, a two-way all-state linebacker/tight end in football and a 12-point, six-rebound contributor in basketball.They still have explosive 5-10 guard-forward James Glenn and they still play in a primarily 2B league that prepares them for tournament play.

“They’re a good team — a very good team,” Wagenaar said of the Tigers. “I haven’t seen all the teams in the state, but ... I think they’re probably the second-toughest No. 2 seed in the whole bracket, behind (top-ranked) Liberty Christian. And you never know how that plays out — maybe they’re the toughest.”

Wagenaar’s team, though, has one of the 1B ranks’ top go-to guys in Joel Koopmans (17.1 points per game), a 6-6 shot-blocker Jason Friend and steady guard play from Jesse Brouwer and Danny Van Boven. And Odessa coach Ken Schutz knows his team will be considered an underdog against the 16-5 defending champs in Wednesday’s 2 p.m. first-rounder, even though the Tigers’ only loss to a 1B team came in the district final against Cusick.

“It was kind of a tough draw,” he said of opening Wednesday against Sunnyside Christian, “but I think this year the field is much more even than last year. I see some favorites, but they can be beat, too, on a given night. We feel we’ve been tested, when you come out of the Bi-County (League) and play all those 2B schools.”

Klickitat (11-12), in the tournament for the first time since 1967, finds itself opening 4 p.m. today against Garfield-Palouse (20-4), the team generally perceived as the favorite to come out of the lower bracket.

“I know that Whitman County was real tough, and they’re the best team in Whitman County,” Vandals coach Kirk Huwe said of Gar-Pal, which won the District Nine title and comes in on a five-game win streak.

The fact that Gar-Pal is a guard-oriented team, though, may work to Klickitat’s advantage.

“We’re strong guard-wise, too. We kind of match up well,” Huwe said. “Defensively, we struggle against big guys more than we do with guards. And we’ve got some balance on offense — that’s been one of our strengths, that we’ve got five guys scoring at about 10 points a game.”

One Vandal starter recently became ineligible because of grades, but the Vandals still have five players averaging between 7.3 and 11.8 points — only one of whom, Herschel Sanchey (8.7 ppg), is a senior. And that gives them reason for real optimism, not just for next year but for this week.

“We hope to trophy,” Huwe said. “Not having been here in more than 40 years, that would be pretty big.”