A Historic Night For B And Sje As The Eagles Fly

Perhaps the most lopsided championship game in State B history is not the best possible advertisement for girls basketball.

Pretty good advertisement for St. John and Endicott, though - and a suitable addendum to the history they share.

That history is downright stifling at times. Come to think of it, so are the advertisements. When the Pepsi commercial on the Arena’s big screen drowns out the school song, it’s time to call a timeout on TV.

Alas, maybe that’s what happens when the tournament of the ‘50s sleepwalks into the ‘90s.

Luxury suites. Sonics-wannabe sound effects. A battalion of minicams to catch every bead of sweat and every tear.

The Internet, for Lyle’s sake. The State B on the World Wide Web.

Who better to drag us out of this time warp than the B’s most storied, most decorated school?

Check it out: when it’s revealed amid all the postgame euphoria that senior Andee Schmick’s grandpa - Arnold “Swede” Gentry - coached St. John’s boys to the school’s first B title in 1942, you know you’re in the right place.

So the final score - St. John-Endicott 73, Sunnyside Christian 42 - was an accidental excess. But by one point or 31, the moment was going to be appreciated.

“I don’t cry over many things,” said Schmick, who set a tournament record for hugs in the aftermath, “but good lord, I lost it tonight.”

And that was before the gold ball came loose from atop the brittle block of walnut.

That’s right, the Eagles broke the trophy - in much the same way they broke the Knights, who couldn’t keep up the nothing-to-lose facade that had been their secret weapon the first three days of the tournament.

So doggedly did the Eagles defend Sunnyside Christian that the Knights would have struggled to score on the West court - abandoned after the other girls trophy games and the baskets lowered to ankle-high. By the end of the first quarter, the Knights had as many turnovers (eight) as shots attempted.

Funny thing was, SJE coach Lorin Carlon dreaded the exact opposite.

“I was afraid we might come out really tight and struggle shooting,” said Carlon, almost laughing at himself for such a notion. “But when the Bafus girl (junior Brooke Bafus) stepped up there and shot the first 3, I thought, ‘I don’t believe we’re very tight tonight.”’

The girls, no. The coach, maybe.

“Andee’s sitting with me with 3 minutes to go,” Carlon said. “I said, ‘Andee, can they score 30 points in 3 minutes?’ She says, ‘I don’t think they can.’ Then I relaxed a little bit.”

He could have relaxed three months ago. The Eagles cruised through the season 28-0. Sunnyside Christian denied them a rematch with defending state champion Wishkah Valley, which bumped SJE in last year’s quarterfinals but if that would have been a different game, it wouldn’t have had a different outcome.

The WIAA has done its best to make the girls’ state experience mirror that of the boys and it’s almost reached nirvana. The end-to-end courts at the Arena was such a hit with the brass that they’re thinking of ordering the same configuration at the Tacoma Dome.

Yet in a small but significant way, the B girls are already a level above their brothers.

At a school of just 68 students, Carlon was blessed with two Division I talents. Tricia Lamb, the co-MVP of the B with Morton’s Sarah Coleman, has another year of high school ahead of her. Schmick, a 6-foot-2 center in a 5-8 body, just needs someone to look beyond her size.

And there were others. Coleman will play somewhere. Wilbur-Creston’s Jessica Martin will play volleyball at Washington State.

In the boys tournament, finding a D-I athlete is as weird as getting the Clallam Bay score by modem.

“The girls’ game is getting better by leaps and bounds,” Carlon said, “and the B girl is still able to compete. We’ll come up here in the summer and play against Spokane schools.”

On this night, anyway, they would have welcomed the competition.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review