State Tournament

My first state tournament was a long time ago when I was in the second grade. I have been to at least one day of tournament games ever since, this one being the 58th in a row.

I know there are some that have been to more but I’m a big fan. I had a brother who played at state and I played there in 1970.

Ask anyone who has had the opportunity to play at the state tournament and they will tell you that was the best experience of their high school career. The memories will last a lifetime.

I visited with at least three former state champions this weekend, but we never mentioned the actual games. We talked about coaches and players and the great games we had already seen during the four-day run this year.

I have reached the point in my life where former rivals that I had in high school now have grandkids playing in the tournament.

I really think that is the way it should be this passing of the torch, so to speak. We need to have that next generation be as excited as we were when we were introduced for that first game at state.

Through the years I have been able to visit with more rivals than teammates at the tournament. I love everything about going to the ‘B’ tournament except the traffic. Well, at least it isn’t as bad as the west side traffic.

I didn’t see every game but I did see most of every championship game. I was a little late for the 1B girls’ game because I was visiting with an old friend and I felt that was a pretty important thing to do.

Looking through the tournament program one thing jumped out at me very clearly. There are a lot of youngsters that will be returning to their respective teams.

2B Champion Kittitas is losing two seniors and will have a bunch of kids who will be juniors next year including 6’1” Brock Revet who is a scoring machine.

He can hit the three and drive to the bucket and score. He had 29 of the 32 Kittitas points scored in the first half of the championship game.

The Coyotes should have had a bigger lead but many of Revet’s passes to teammates didn’t end up in the basket. I think some of his young teammates may have been a bit nervous.

Revet easily could have had six assists by halftime but there were plenty of missed shots and turnovers that those boys had trouble finishing. Oh well! That’s why you play the game.

Will Kittitas be champions again next year?

That could easily happen since they were undefeated this season and will probably be undefeated when they play their first game in the Spokane Veteran’s Arena next March.

But they will still need to prove their worth on the court. No one is going to lie down and give the gold ball back to them. These things need to be earned.

Maybe there will be another team that can make those important strides and upset this darn good team. We’ll see.

Last year 3A Nathan Hale finished the season 3-18 and this year they finished the season as state champions and went 29-0.

Oh yeah, they had three brothers move into the district from out of state, one is a freshman. Their dad was hired as an assistant coach at the University of Washington.

The oldest brother will attend UW next year. I assume the other two will too as long as their dad is working in Huskyville.

Besides the three brothers that came to the Nathan Hale district, five other basketball players transferred to Nathan Hale as well. First year coach for Nathan Hale is Brandon Roy, former Husky and Portland Trail Blazer. These are facts that you can research on the Internet.

Interestingly enough, the three brothers decided they needed to be home schooled rather than attend Nathan Hale High School. Don’t get me wrong here, I know some great kids that are or have been home schooled. But I do think the timing is a bit interesting.

So, why did I bring this up? It goes to show you that you never can tell what might happen a year from now. If a team can go from worst to first in the state then anything can happen as long as the right pieces are put in place.