Knowing they were going up against the Class 1A ranks’ tallest team, the
Brewster Bears prepared for their opening-round game against
fifth-ranked Winlock with some unusual props: chairs and brooms.
“In practice, we had our managers standing on chairs at the spots we
thought they’d be in their zone defense,” coach Cass Gebbers said after
his team’s 55-47 victory over Winlock, whose five starters averaged
6-51?4 to the Bears’ 6-foot-nothing.
“On the chairs they were like 7-5,” senior guard Wade Gebbers
grinned. “And guys would be holding up brooms like they were defenders’
hands, waving them around. We had fun with it.”
The younger Gebbers, who a team-high 20 points, said he had played
against teams that tall in AAU tournaments in Las Vegas and Houston but
never in high school ball. “For a 1A team to have that kind of height,
that was unbelievable.”
1,000 AND COUNTING: Nobody set any records during
Wednesday’s 5:30 p.m. games, but they were historic nonetheless. They
marked the 999th and 1,000th state-tournament games played at the
SunDome since the first Class 2A tournament here in 1999.
That is a big number, one that gets even bigger when you consider
that the 156 games being played in this year’s back-to-back-to-back
state tournaments (1B, 1A, 2A) will bring an estimated $5.7 million to
Yakima — in hotels, restaurants, parking, tourism and the like.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: The King’s girls basketball team
has new leadership this year, and it’s kind of a family thing. With
former coach Eric Rasmussen simply too busy to coach — he is, after all,
the King’s superintendent — this year the Knights are being guided by
head coach Tressa Berg. Her top assistant? Her husband, Dan Berg. One of
the Knights’ reserves is K.C. Berg — yes, a daughter. And starting on
the Knights’ boys team is another Berg — K.C.’s brother, Zack. And
sitting in the stands was Dan’s father, Dave, who had been an assistant
coach on the Knights’ boys team when Dan played for King’s.
SMART GUYS, GOOD GUYS: The Port Townsend boys team
won the academic state championship this year with a loft 3.75
grade-point average, and four players on the team carry perfect 4.0
GPAs. (One of those perfect kids, Jesse Yorish, is sometimes jokingly
referred to as Homework.com, for his ability to answer any
homework-related question with a quick telephone call or text message.
But perhaps more telling about the Redskins’ character came at the
Gonzaga team camp last summer, when the PT starters came to coach John
Stroeder and told him they wanted everybody to play a lot in every game
— even the way-at-the-end-of-the-bench guys, several of whom didn’t even
make the varsity team. So the starters spent just as much time rooting
on the scrubs as vice versa.
SHORT JUMPERS: Wait a minute: Was former Seattle
Mariner catcher Dave Valle, snapping pictures with a
large camera on a tripod during Bellevue Christian’s girls game on
Wednesday night? Yes. His daughter Alina, is a freshman
guard for the Vikings. … Port Townsend reserve center Vinnie
Johnson is one of the top high school jazz guitarists on the
West Coast. … Three of the best players in the boys tournament —
Chelan’s Joe Harris, Vashon’s John Gage
and Bellevue Christian’s David Downs, played on the
same Friends of Hoop traveling team last summer. … When Granger won the
SCAC district boys title this year, it was the Spartans’ first district
championship since 1969, according to coach Miguel Bazaldua.
Fred Cardenas, who hit the winning shot in 1969 to beat
Highland, was there in the audience when Granger finally repeated the
feat.
