YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

State championships are hard to come by. And any Yakima Valley volleyball team that captures a state title this weekend will have earned it.

Especially if Selah manages that feat.

The Vikings, the top-ranked Class 3A team in this season's final state coaches' poll, must open against No. 4 Tumwater Friday afternoon. And if they get past that one, they'll almost certainly have to face Bainbridge, which finished third last year and is ranked No. 2.

As if that's not enough, looming ahead in the third round would be a likely showdown against No. 3 R.A. Long -- with the winner possibly facing No. 5 Anacortes in the championship match. That would mean Selah could conceivably have to beat the Nos. 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-ranked teams to live up to its No. 1 billing.

On the other side of the bracket, West Valley must open against Kennedy, which is coming off its third straight West Central District championship run, and Ellensburg must face Anacortes.

Eisenhower will face a similarly difficult challenge in the Class 4A tournament -- which, like the 3A tourney, will be held at the Everett Events Center.

The second-ranked Cadets find themselves in the opposite Class 4A bracket from No. 1 Mead, to which Ike dropped a nail-biter in the 2004 state championship match.

But that's about the only favor the schedule offers the Cadets. Their opening-round match on Friday morning will be against Olympia, which can be a particularly tricky foe. In winning their own Capital City Tournament this year, the Bears handed Selah -- a winner over Ike in tournament play this year -- its only setback of the season.

Should the Cadets get past Olympia, though, they likely would face a Snohomish team that they blitzed in three straight games at last month's Spokane Crossover Classic.

Bracket draws for the Class 2A and 1A tournaments to be played Friday and Saturday at the Yakima Valley SunDome offered mixed fortunes for the local qualifiers.

In the 2A tourney, CWAC district champion Grandview finds itself in a grueling quarterbracket. The No. 7 Greyhounds open against Mount Baker, with the winner almost certain to face King's -- which, its No. 2 ranking notwithstanding, is as much of a tournament favorite as top-ranked Lynden Christian.

In Class 1A, Cle Elum faces the biggest challenge -- literally -- of the three SCAC West teams in the field. The Warriors face No. 6 Bellevue Christian, which spent much of the season ranked No. 1 and could fill out a front line standing 6-foot-4, 6-3 and 6-3.

SCAC District champion Goldendale would seem to be a big favorite to win its opener against Cedar Park Christian, which earned the last of the Tri-District's sixth state-tourney berths. But the Timberwolves' likely second-round opponent would be La Conner, which reached the finals last year with an all-underdog team and looks like the team to beat.

Zillah opens against a young, tall Liberty Bell squad that dominated the Caribou Trail League this year and comes in with the No. 8 ranking Ñ one in front of the Leopards.

The Valley's two Class B state-tourney entrants, La Salle and Riverside Christian, had distinctly different luck from one another.

La Salle will open against Orcas Island, whose seventh-place trophy last year was only the second state trophy in its history.

As a district champion, Riverside Christian would be expected to draw a team that barely slipped into the tourney, and the Crusaders did -- but they drew a ringer. They open against third-ranked Sprague-Harrington, which was upset by Curlew in its district tourney and had to come back through the consolation bracket.