Lind, Cusick Pile Up Losses, But Still Win

In some towns, March Madness is just a rumor.

In some towns, just to be a February Fatality is a worthy goal.

In some towns - hey, a lot of towns - they’ve long been ready for basketball season to be over.

Astoundingly, confoundingly, not Lind.

And not Cusick.

Not even with 77 consecutive defeats between them were the girls hoopsters of Lind and Cusick - or Cusick and Lind, if you prefer - of a mind to deflate the balls and launder the uniforms. Rather, they conspired to go several days - and in Cusick’s case, a good 120 miles - out of their way to prolong what weaker spirits would euthanize.

Two winless seasons - actually, two times two - became one Tuesday night.

Not necessarily by design, however.

“Getting one of us a victory,” insisted Lind coach Kristin Cornelis, “was not what this was about.”

Though it was inescapable.

It was sometime in January that Cornelis bowed to the inevitable and acknowledged that her Bulldogs - though she “loves them to death” - would not have a date for the Bi-County playoffs. They were losing by an average of 41 points a game, a two-point near-miss against Soap Lake being both an agonizing and encouraging exception.

Nor would the Bulldogs fill their WIAA limit of 20 regular-season games, since league member Christian Heritage does not have a girls team.

“We’re a team that needs experience to improve,” Cornelis said. “I knew a team in Seattle was looking for a game, but that wasn’t going to be feasible, so we started checking around.”

She didn’t have to check far. A former substitute teacher at Cusick, Cornelis “knew their record and our record and it just happened they were under the limit and out of the playoffs, too.”

Just for the record, the Bulldogs were 0-17 and the Panthers 0-19 - and their losing streaks 36 and 41 games, respectively, though Cusick nearly ruined the symmetry by coming up just four points short in the Panorama finale against Wellpinit.

Still, shorter odds of winning weren’t the primary motivation for the Panthers, either.

It was during a school fund-raiser that coach Jim Sattleen’s athletic director came to him with Lind’s proposition. The entire Cusick team was there, including Carissa Haas, who hadn’t played since dislocating her kneecap six games into the season.

“My rehab will be over by then,” she said.

“Let’s play,” said her teammates.

And since then, the anticipation has mounted.

OK, so it didn’t mount very high. A quick count at tipoff revealed 133 people in the gym - including players, coaches, refs, the band and a guy in a Cusick letter jacket who, while the teams were still in their dressing rooms, one-timed a baseball-shot from the second row of the bleachers.

For a while, that looked as if it would be the highlight.

Lind’s first four possessions resulted in turnovers; Cusick had seven of them between baskets later in the quarter.

Nerves. Maybe it wasn’t playoff pressure, but the scoreboard was still plugged in.

“The losing streak does weigh on them,” Cornelis conceded. “You get sick and tired of losing - and they’ve gone through it longer than I have, since it’s just my first year. But we tried to keep this one in perspective - it’s just one game, for fun, and whatever happened we weren’t going to be disappointed.

“It’s better than being home sitting in front of the TV, right?” And yet, well, it had to mean something.

Otherwise, Sattleen wouldn’t have bothered with his three clipboards for stats, and the moms and dads who braved the flash snowstorm outside to make it to the gym wouldn’t have had the video cams cranked up.

Otherwise, Lind’s Megan Wills wouldn’t have had one eye on the clock - which, as it happened, was behind her - when she beat the third-quarter buzzer with a 3-pointer.

At his place of work Tuesday morning, one of the game’s referees was teased about his evening assignment - as if Cusick and Lind were a comedy team, the Rowan and Martin of roundball.

There were smiles on both sides Tuesday night, but it was no joke.

“Every time people see it in the paper, ‘Cusick loses,’ well, you want to show them you can win,” said Haas.

“It’s hard to support a team that loses every night. People want to support us and they’re behind us when we play hard, but sometimes there’s barely anyone at the games. I guess I can understand that. It’s just hard when we’re losing all the time.”

And yet not at practice, apparently.

“These girls have handled things well,” Sattleen said. “You know, it hasn’t just been basketball - it’s been volleyball and softball, too. But they stick together and have a great time. Our practices are probably more fun than anybody’s in the state. We play hard, but we laugh a lot, too. Maybe we should be more competitive in practice, but we work hard enough and still have a good time.”

And you settle for little victories.

“Even if you beat someone you’ve never beaten before running a set of lines,” Cornelis said, “you’ve improved from yesterday. So it really doesn’t matter what people say about you or what the score is.”

By the way, the score Tuesday night was Cusick 53, Lind 34.

In some towns, stuff like that has to be reported first.

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