Inaccurate Score Sends Ducks Into Nose Dive

B basketball notebook

Garbage in, garbage out.

This week’s Associated Press high school basketball poll showed Curlew taking over the No. 1 position among Class B boys teams.

Toutle Lake dropped from No. 1 to No. 5. Voters were apparently swayed by a score that ran on the Associated Press wires Friday night: Lake Quinault 58, Toutle Lake 50.

Problem is, Toutle Lake didn’t play Lake Quinault that night. Or lose to anybody.

So the Ducks were cooked by one inaccurate score that flew across the state like a migratory mallard.

Junior’s high

Toutle Lake’s lone loss of the year came during a Central League game against undefeated Adna.

Adna, which won by 24 points, used its not-so-secret weapon: 7-foot junior Jeff Ellis.

The word on Ellis is that he’s slow but has a nice shooting touch.

District dope

Starting tonight, and continuing through Saturday, the State B fields will take shape.

The Seattle Lutheran and Watson Groen Christian girls, and Tacoma Baptist and Snohomish County Christian boys already have qualified for the March 1-4 tournament.

Half of the 16 berths belong to the West Side - four apiece to the Northwest Tri-District and Southwest District. The North Central District boys send just one to State, while the Yakima District receives two. Those numbers are flip-flopped for the girls. For both boys and girls, the Northeast District sends three and the Southeast District two.

Boys teams expected to advance and join East Side teams at the Coliseum are: Mount Vernon Christian, Tri-District; Toutle Lake, Adna and Rainier, Southwest District; Pateros or Waterville, North Central District; and Mabton and Kittitas, Yakima Valley District.

Leading girls contenders for the tournament at Spokane Falls Community College are: Darrington, Tri-District; Wishkah Valley, Mossyrock, Rainier and Lake Quinault, Southwest; Kittitas or Klickitat, Yakima; and Manson and Bridgeport-Mansfield, North Central.

The draw for the state tournament will be at 9 a.m. Sunday in the Ridpath Hotel’s Empire Ballroom A.

The times, they are a changin’

Most State B games will be earlier than in previous years.

The biggest change on the first two days is two sessions instead of three. The break will come between 3 and 5 p.m., allowing for the final game to start at 9:30, instead of 10.

Friday’s first two games will start an hour later, but there won’t be a break until 4:30. The other four games will start earlier than usual.

Saturday’s schedule remains the same, with a noon start for girls and 1 p.m. for boys. The girls title game is at 7:10 p.m., again moving from SFCC to the Coliseum. The boys final follows at 9:10.