Wiaa/U.S. Bank State Aaa Basketball
Who: Sixteen boys and girls teams, coming out of four district or regional tournaments. The only Greater Spokane League qualifiers are the Mead and Shadle Park girls.
When: Wednesday, beginning at 9 a.m., through Saturday.
Where: Both boys and girls are playing in the Kingdome this year.
Championships: Saturday both final games will be played on the boys court, the girls about 7 p.m., the boys about 9.
Radio: KTRW (970 AM) will do all games involving GSL teams.
Girls
Mead: The Panthers (22-3) are playing Prairie (22-0) in the first round at 10:30 a.m. They are making their sixth straight appearance at state. They were third last year, fourth the year before, champions in 1990 and ‘92, second in ‘91. They have won at least 20 games in each of the last six years.
Shadle Park: The Highlanders (22-4) are playing Kent-Meridian (21-3) in the first round at noon. They are making their second straight appearance at state. They lost out on Friday last year after winning their opening game before losing to Mead in the second round. Shadle Park won state titles in 1988 and ‘89.
Team to beat: Obviously, it has to be top-ranked Prairie. The Falcons have won two titles in a row, winning the 1993 Class AA championship and then winning the AAA title last year.
Other contenders: Mead and Shadle Park have a chance, but are in the toughest bracket with seven of the eight teams having state experience with four placing last year. Mountain View (19-5), second in its district behind Prairie and Kamiakin (22-3), which beat Mead for the east regional title, are the best in the other bracket.
Top players: Mead gets to see 6-foot-3 Sonja Curtis right off the bat. Headed to Oregon, Curtis averages 18.5 points and 10 rebounds a game for Prairie. Shadle Park tackles 6-foot-2 Benishe Dillard, who has turned down Washington because she wants to play volleyball. She averages 11.9 points and 10 rebounds.
The top scorer in the tournament is Tatum Brown, a 6-3 junior for Foss, at 18.6 points a game. Dillard held the transfer from California to 6 points.
Melina Flores, a cat-quick 5-6 junior guard with a 14.8 average, is back for the third straight year with Snohomish. She was a key factor in getting Snohomish to the final game two years ago when Central Valley won the championship.
Boys
Top contenders: Juanita returns four starters from the team that lost to Ferris in the championship last year. Decatur could also be a factor in the bottom bracket. Mercer Island, the 1993 champ, is the class of the top bracket with topranked Evergreen (22-0) and Kamiakin, which could be MI’s second-round foe.
Top players: There are two standouts with impressive bloodlines. Terik Brown, a 6-1 guard and the son of former Seattle Sonic “Downtown” Freddy Brown, is MI’s all-time leading scorer and led the King-Co League at 26 ppg. Donald Watts, the son of former Sonic Donald “Slick” Watts, led Lake Washington at 22 ppg. The 6-5 guard is bound for UW.
Lake Washington also has Idaho-bound 7-footer David Sturing and a Division I baseball player in 5-10 guard Jeremy Deshazer, headed to WSU. There are two D-I football players, UW-bound quarterback Brock Huard of Puyallup and WSUbound lineman Malcolm Stewart, who became Eishenhower’s all-time leading scorer against Rogers last Friday.