After weeks of attention lapses and competitive focus that drifted in and out as they cruised through the SCAC West girls basketball season, the Granger Spartans did some significant rewiring on Wednesday.

From AC to DC.

View all photos for this story.

The alternating current, that on-again, off-again intensity that had had coach Andy Affholter worried coming into the Class 1A state tournament, was gone. The Spartans were strictly on direct current in their 45-32 first-round triumph over Vashon Island, a game that wasn't nearly that close as the final score might indicate.

"We all know what the state tournament's about. This is what we practice for all year. This is the big time," Granger senior Sam Zapien said after her 13-point, four-steal game. "It's really hard during the season sometimes. You want to win every game, but it's really hard to always be at your best when you don't play against the best teams, the competition every night."

In the locker room prior to the game, Affholter had each of his players write in pen on her hand the letters PEP.

"It's for Play Every Play," Affholter said. "We can't afford to take plays off, to let down for even a little bit. Even today, in the fourth quarter we got kind of relaxed and bang-bang, they hit two 3's."

Here's the thing, though: Until those back-to-back 3-pointers in the final five minutes by Kelly Costello, Vashon's leading scorer with 13 points, only once all game had the Pirates scored as many as four consecutive points.

"Really? That's good defense," mused Granger senior Ashlee Reddout, who scored seven of her nine points in the first half as Granger built a 26-13 lead, on their way to outrebounding a Pirate squad that featured two 6-foot forwards and a 6-5 center.

"You just have work hard. The team that works harder usually wins," Reddout said. "We know we have to box out. Rebounding is our big thing. You get to know what their players are like, make sure you know who you're going to need to help out on."

As it turned out, the Spartans had all the help they needed. Seven Granger players figured in the scoring, with Fantasia Reyes popping in a pair of 3-pointers, Italia Mengarelli getting five of her seven points at the foul line and point guard Janae Klarich -- MVP of the 2009 tournament -- content to feed her teammates. Klarich took only two points and scored two points, but also had six assists and committed just a single turnover.

Watching his team play with the kind of uninterrupted intensity that led Granger to third- and second-place finishes the last two seasons pleased Affholter, though he was definitely concerned about Thursday's quarterfinal against sixth-ranked Lakeside.

"That's the one I'm worried about," the coach said. "But this one today, this is big. This was the hardest we've played in a long time. They left it on the floor today. They were tired."

That, Reddout said, is because the Spartans are where they play their best: under the SunDome lights at state-tourney time.

"Now that we're at the Dome, it's kind of like this is our home. We connect here," Reddout said. "This is where it all matters."