Work to do for Prosser
and East Valley girls

By SCOTT SPRUILL
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

For much of the season, Prosser's girls have been too good for their own good. So coach Mark Little has been forced, on occasion, to be Mr. Negative.

"Sometimes I've had to tell the kids, 'Look, I know it sounds like I'm griping," he said, "but we have to get better at a lot of things.'"

Not the easiest message to get across when your average winning margin is 24 points. What do we have to get better at, coach?

Well, the time has come to address that question. Or find that it has no answer.

The top-ranked Mustangs carry a 23-1 record and 10-game winning streak into today's Class 2A state quarterfinal against No. 3 White River (23-4) at 9 p.m.

Prosser will have some CWAC company in East Valley (21-5), which opens in the first girls quarterfinal at 3:45 against Burlington-Edison (20-4).

After making a dominant 18-0 run through conference play, Prosser hasn't seen anything different in the postseason, sweeping through four CWAC teams to reach the quarterfinals.

Which makes the Mustangs' lone loss -- a one-point setback on Jan. 17 to Idaho 5A state runner-up Coeur d'Alene -- all the more valuable.

"Probably the most important thing to come out of that game was reminding us that we need to do a better job running the (half-court) offense," Little explained. "Sometimes we get a little bit lazy with that because we get so much scoring off our defense and break. Half-court execution is a big deal at this level."

Since reaching last year's state championship final, where they fell to River Ridge 57-46, the Mustangs have been building toward a return. They retained three starters, including reigning 2A state player of the year Tamara Jones, and are on a four-year run of accumulating state trophies.

Jones (19.5) and fellow senior Tayshia Hunt (15.8) account for well over half of Prosser's 61-point scoring average. Coming off the bench, sophomore Sydney Mercer is the team's No. 3 scorer with nearly 10 points a game.

"It may sound kind of silly, like a cliche, but my big deal is getting these girls as close to their potential as we can get," Little said. "We've got talent and a bunch of hard-workers, now we hope to bring that all together."

In the other semifinal bracket looms River Ridge (21-2), which has captured three of the last four 2A state titles. Both Prosser and River Ridge had only two seniors on last year's teams.

Graduation had a far heavier impact on East Valley, which lost three starters off last year's 20-win squad that placed eighth at state. Given those losses, and with only two seniors on this roster, the Red Devils have shown the perennial strength and depth of the program's decorated past.

"It's been one of the most rewarding seasons I've had here," said EV coach Robi Raab. "We did lose three very talented seniors, brought up several kids who played mostly JV and faced some very tough situations. But here we are."

Those tough situations would be advancing through three loser-out games in eight days, capped by Saturday's 39-38 overtime victory over Ephrata.

And everybody has pitched in. While winning four of its last five postseason games, EV has had four different leading scorers and all are juniors -- Tassia Merkle, Yasi Mohsenian, Mikaela Zimmer and Kellie Ross.

"We've got a number of kids who, in the right situations, can be a big spark for us," Raab said. "Having the three loser-out games has helped us. We're very excited to still be playing."