Chelan's Erik Romero, back, tries to get the ball from Grandview's Brandon Artz, as his teammate, Michael Jimenez, right, pitches in a hand during the first half in the third-annual Tourneytown.com Shootout at the SunDome on Monday.   JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic

By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Two yearsFor six minutes, it looked like 2002 all over again for the Grandview Greyhounds. Same venue, the Yakima Valley SunDome. Same opponent, same baseline-to-baseline intensity, same offensive balance.

Certainly, to Chelan coach Joe Harris, the Grandview that beat his team 56-40 in Monday’s TourneyTown.com Shootout looked eerily like the Greyhounds who edged the Goats under the same roof for the 2002 state championship.

“They come at you in waves, and they’re all about the same height so they all look about the same — and you can’t leave any of ’em alone,” Harris
said.

“About the time you key on one guy, somebody else steps up and hits one.”

And, just as in 2002, the Greyhounds can get it done in a hurry. They won Monday’s game in six minutes. That’s how long it took them to turn a 7-5 deficit into a 22-9 lead, and they did it not because Chelan began throwing the ball all over creation. They did it with pure hard work, good passing and defense — and made it seem easy.

“Everything just clicks. Things that wouldn’t normally be breaking for you just start coming together,” said junior guard Adam Dion, who popped in two 3-pointers and had eight points during the run. “You could see frustration on (the Goats’) faces.”

Over those six minutes, Chelan committed only one turnover, but the Goats couldn’t get a second-shot opportunity, while the Greyhounds — who shot 6-for-8 over 4 1/2 minutes of the run — didn’t need one.

“That’s just great teamwork,” said senior James Vela, who added five points, including a trey, during the run and finished with a team-high 15 points. “Everybody’s been picking it up since Chris (Mejia) has been gone, making great passes, playing tough defense, just playing great basketball.”

Indeed, the Grandview team that ran its record to 9-2 Monday has gone three weeks without its best player, Chris Mejia, who was averaging nearly 16 points before suffering a knee injury that required surgery. That’s created big-game experience for more bench players, and it shows; on Monday, seven Greyhounds got into the scoring column and nine played double-digit minutes.

“It’s going to help a lot when we get Chris back, when we have everybody healthy,” said Dion, who finished with 13 points. “It’s going to make our bench deeper, that’s for sure.”

The Goats didn’t exactly go away after Grandview’s run, but the game was never really close the rest of the way. Chelan, with senior guard Lane Nelson popping in 17 points, was within 12 going into the final quarter. When forward Rick Rush scored an old-fashioned three-point play to open the final quarter, the Goats (7-5) were within double digits — at 41-32 — for the first time since the first period.

As if on cue, Dion fired in a 3-pointer for a 12-point lead and the Goats never made another run.

“It felt real nice,” Dion said of the trey. “We kind of went into a dry spell, and that kind of boosted us a little bit.”

“We’re playing really well as a team without Chris in there,” Grandview coach Scott Parrish said. “It seems like it’s always someone different who steps up and has a big game.”

Or, as in Monday’s case, everybody steps up and has a huge six minutes.