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Posted Dec. 12, 2002

Week 11: Pistoljevic finds shooting touch
Week 10: Pasco to keep state track/cross-country meets
Week 9: Ki-Be's Burgess signs with WSU
Week 8: Den Boer, 6 others sign letters
Week 7: Some playoffs get quick makeover
Week 6: Othello starts slow, gets hot
Week 5: Lopsided scores continue to roll along
Week 4: Special plays spark Burbank
Week 3: Kennewick football celebrates
Week 2: When is too much?
Week 1: Kennewick volleyball spikes up

Wa-Hi boys basketball rested, rolling

By René Ferrán
Herald staff writer

Christmas break came at the perfect time for the Walla Walla boys basketball team.

After reaching the 4A state semifinals in football, several key Blue Devils such as Casey Waddell, Pierce Johnson, Zac Widmer and Craig Mettler were nursing injuries. Waddell missed two games recovering from a sprained ankle.

Since coming back from the two-week break, Wa-Hi has gone 3-0 and asserted itself into the thick of the Big Nine Conference race at 5-1, one game behind first-place Davis.

"We got to rest up for this big stretch of games," said Waddell, who scored a season-high 16 points Tuesday in a 56-41 victory at Southridge. "Everyone got the chance to heal up."

The break also allowed everyone to get back into a basketball mindset. Wa-Hi's success relies upon playing precision basketball, and it took a little time to work out the kinks.

"We're just playing smart ball overall," Johnson said. "We're hustling, on defense especially, and that's what wins games.

"We could do a lot of fancy thngs, but we don't. We just work our offense right, and it's unstoppable, even if the other team knows what we're going to do. We just execute the best we can, and we're doing pretty much what coach (Jim Thacker) says."

The Devils are in the midst of a nine-day stretch in which they play five games, finishing with a road trip to Eastmont on Saturday. They've already beaten Pasco - with which they're tied for second - and the 4-2 Suns.

"Our confidence is way up," Johnson said. "We've just got to finish off this stretch this weekend, and we'll be in pretty good shape."

* At the other end of the spectrum are the Southridge girls, who are finding the learning curve in the Big Nine to be pretty steep.

The Suns came into the season with no seniors and one returning starter (Vicky Guile), and they've started two freshmen - point guard Kristie Johnson and forward Heather Davis.

Their 0-7 start wasn't unexpected, but sixth-year coach Darlene Harris didn't quite expect the struggles her youngsters have faced.

"They work so hard in practice. This is one of the most committed groups I've had in terms of wanting to get better," Harris said. "It just hasn't come as easily as it should for them. They have a long way to go."

That's especially true on the offensive end, where the Suns have averaged just 30.9 points per game. Guile is the team's leading scorer at 7.7 ppg.

"It's what concerns me the most," Harris said. "We can run the offense just fine, but until we feel comfortable with the ball in our hands and being the one who's going to put points on the board, we're going to continue to struggle."

The Suns have a good shot at win No. 1 Friday when they travel to Moses Lake, the Big Nine's other winless team. They also play host to Eastmont and Moses Lake in the second half of the season, so Harris is optimistic her team won't finish winless.

"The one good thing is that they're all underclassmen," Harris said. "We felt going in that this year would be a growth year as we're trying to rebuild the program. If the girls commit to each other to come together and to work during the offseason, I think we can make some strides for next year."

* The Kennewick boys suffered a blow last week when Cooper Bates, a 6-foot-5 senior, left the team and returned to Hagerman, Idaho, with his mother to tend to a medical emergency in his family.

Bates, who averaged 10.7 ppg in the Lions' first six games, transferred to Kennewick High this year.

"Cooper's doing the right thing," said Lions coach Ron King. "Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family."

With Bates' departure, King is looking to senior Corey Fannin and junior Matt Larson to fill the void. Fannin took Bates' spot in the starting lineup Saturday at Walla Walla and scored 12 points in a 57-44 loss.

"You can't coach height. Cooper provided a defensive presence for us and rebounding," King said. "Corey did a great job in his place. He's got a good knack for the ball and good court sense, as does Matt. We need them to step it up now."

* The CWAC South and SCAC East division seasons kick off this weekend with a pair of key matchups.

The Connell girls, who are 6-2 and whose only losses were by two to 8-1 Chelan and in overtime to 7-1 Prosser, travel Friday to defending 2A state champion East Valley for an early-season showdown.

The following night, the defending East champion River View boys take on a Royal team picked to finish in the upper half of the divisional standings. The Panthers (5-3) are the lone East team over .500 at the moment.

* After leading the Columbia-Burbank girls to a fifth-place finish at the 1A state tournament in March, Jerry Washburn thought he was done with coaching.

So how did he end up on the sidelines at Liberty Christian this season?

A mutual friend told Washburn, who coached at Burbank eight seasons, about the LC opening in late May, and Washburn was intrigued.

"Being a Christian school, the opportunity to coach there was interesting to me," Washburn said. "I gave up coaching because I thought I didn't want to any more. But I decided to do this, and I'm really glad I did. I'm having a good time."

The Patriots are 6-5 after a nonleague loss Tuesday at Lyle. They are led by senior Alayna Brauer, a first-team All-Blue Mountain League selection last season, sisters Kaley -a 5-10 senior who was a second-teamer last season - and Kourtney Hawk, and freshman Caitlyn Dunham, their leading scorer at around 14 ppg.

Washburn was especially pleased with their game Saturday at league favorite DeSales, a 45-44 loss. "It was good for us to go down there and play them that well," he said. "I felt good about our effort there."

* There's been a shakeup in the soccer coaching staff at Pasco High, with Marty Martinez let go as the girls coach and Chad Bodnar hired this week to take over for Sean Esterhuizen as boys coach.

Martinez went 57-34-3 in six seasons at Pasco and led the Bulldogs to their only two state appearances, reaching the quarterfinals in 1998 and the first round this season.

Athletic director Le Burns declined to discuss the dismissal, saying it was a personnel matter. Martinez said he was told the reason for his dismissal was "they felt the program had gone stagnant and wasn't going in the right direction.

"I was pretty devastated," Martinez said. "I didn't know what to say. There was nothing else I could do. I don't know where to go next now. I want to keep my coaching career going, but positions just don't come open that often."

The boys position came open when Esterhuizen left to add the Hanford boys job to the girls position he already held with the Falcons.

Bodnar is a 1996 Pasco graduate who went on to play at Wisconsin-Green Bay and for one season professionally in California. He has been working to get his teaching credential, and in the meantime has coached at McLoughlin Middle School and the Capital High club team in Boise, Idaho.

"He's not just been a part of our program, but he's played at the next level, so he can direct the kids and make them understand what it takes to play at the next level," Burns said.

* Organizers for the state track and field championships are scheduled to meet today to begin hammering out the makeup of the management committee agreed upon last month with the WIAA to keep the meet in Pasco.

Burns will hold one of the main positions on the committee, as will John Crawford, the former meet director, as competitions chairman. Burns said the number of members and their responsibilities has yet to be decided.

"John was a one-headed monster with track and cross country for a long time," Burns said. "He had people around to help, but when things fell through the cracks, they fell on him. We need to see how many people we need and make sure everything is covered."

* Sunnyside Christian senior Lance Den Boer's 52-point effort Saturday in a win over Yakama Tribal was the first 50-point game by a Washington prep boy in five years and only the 29th reported in state history. Aaron Bowman of Ephrata was the last to score 50 in a game when he poured in 56 against Grandview on Jan. 17, 1998. Den Boer moved up to fifth on the all-time career scoring list with 2,305 points. The Rainier Beach boys saw their brief stint as the No. 1 team in the nation come to an end this week after they lost two of three games at the prestigious Academy National Invitational in Houston from Dec. 27-30. The Vikings, now ranked No. 13, lost to No. 2-ranked Oak Hill Academy of Virginia and No. 3 Rice of New York City. Beach (8-2) quickly returned to its winning ways by beating Metro League rivals O'Dea and Nathan Hale. The Enumclaw girls' 55-game South Puget Sound League winning streak came to an end Tuesday with a 55-34 loss to Kentlake, a state semifinalist last season. The Hornets were without leading scorer and 2002 North Division MVP Brittney Osborn (14.6 ppg), who's sidelined 2-to-6 weeks with a right knee injury.

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