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Vashon Island's
John Gage was the most
valuable player in the 2009 1A tournament.
ANDY SAWYER/Yakima Herald-Republic
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Not tonight. Nobody goes home early tonight.
That's because the 9 p.m. boys game at the SunDome
might just as easily have been played late Saturday
-- as in Class 1A championship-game late -- had not Vashon Island, which
spent the first half of the season ranked No. 1 -- not lost to Cascade
Christian in district play.
That meant the Pirates would end up facing a top seed
in their first-round game, and they drew THE top speed -- Chelan, which took
over that No. 1 spot from Vashon at midseason and never gave it up.
"We put ourselves on this path, and hopefully we can
play through it," Vashon Island coach Andy Sears said. "We knew that when we
did lose to Cascade (Christian). What do you do? You prepare as hard as you
can and you get going."
But there's no guarantee that the late-game winner will
make it even to Saturday. This may be the deepest 1A boys tournament in
years, with no fewer than six and perhaps as many as eight teams with a
legitimate shot at winning it.
Onalaska coach Dennis Bowers and Granger coach Miguel
Bazaldua each bring undefeated teams to the SunDome, but neither even ranks
as a favorite. That's because the field also includes Vashon Island and
Chelan -- the only teams to be ranked No. 1 this season -- plus Cascade
Christian (which beat Vashon Island two of three times) and Meridian (which
plays in a 4A- and 3A-dominated league and beat Cascade Christian to win the
Tri-District). And anybody overlooking perennial contenders King's and
Bellevue Christian is in for a long night.
Bowers thinks the field is the deepest since the
mid-1990s.
"I think it's a stacked tournament," said Bowers, whose Loggers are 24-0.
"You've got two teams coming in undefeated, and they might not even be on
anybody's radar. How many (1A) tournaments have we had where we have a
player going to the ACC and we've got a Pac-10 player?"
And they're both playing in that 9 p.m. game --
Chelan's 6-6 Joe Harris, who will play next year at Virginia and Vashon
Island's 6-9 John Gage, bound for Stanford.
Harris is just 56 points shy of breaking the 1A career
scoring mark of 2,382, shoots 62 percent from the field and has 2009-10
averages of 26.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 4.1 steals. Gage
(19.9) and 6-7 guard Alex Wegner (14.1) give Vashon the tourney's best 1-2
punch.
"The Vashon-Chelan game, everybody's already talking
about that, including us," said Bazaldua. "We all want to see it, too."
