Best Seats In The House When Winning Is Not Of The Essence, State B Teams Tap Into Their Reserves

Nearly everyone who has played the game has been there - crouched in front of the scorers’ table, nervously eyeing the game clock as its ticks below a minute and imploring the basketball gods for a foul call, a traveling violation or anything else that might force a stoppage of play and allow a last-second substitution.

Such anxiety is the affliction of pine riders, those seemingly tragic figures who are forced to occupy the last three or four seats on the end of their team’s bench.

As always, this week’s State B boys and girls basketball tournaments unveiled a new crop of ultimate role players, hoping for a blowout victory and chance to ditch their warmups, throw up a couple of shots in the final seconds and, perhaps, write something other than “DNP” beside their names in the scorebook.

Pine riders, also known by such unflattering aliases as benchwarmers, scrubs and The Nut Squad, usually have grade-point averages higher than their minutes-per-game averages. They come in all shapes, sizes and ages - and with a decided variety of temperaments.

Some try to mask the disappointment of not playing by becoming the class clown. Others sulk in silence. A few become downright divisive, lobbying for sympathy from family and friends while trying to drive a wedge between teammates and the head coach responsible for banishing them to the end of the bench.

“That’s the kind of benchwarmer you hope you don’t have,” said LaCrosse-Washtucna boys coach Andy Stinson, whose Tigercats finished eighth at this year’s tournament, which concluded Saturday.

Clint Anderson was a member of the Tigercats’ pine riders, but was not a dissenter. According to Stinson, Anderson stayed incredibly upbeat, just like he had been all season despite being the last man off the bench and playing in only nine games.

“Clint’s the kind of guy you want,” Stinson said of the 5-10 senior guard who was a running back and defensive back on the Tigercats’ football team. “He doesn’t have a lot of talent, but he’s got a lot of heart. “

Still, Anderson admitted it hasn’t been easy maintaining the proper mindset of a benchwarmer.

“I kind of expected to play a little bit more than I have,” he said. “It was tough to deal with early in the season, but now I’m just taking it as it comes and doing what I can to help the team.”

Another senior who has had to deal with the frustrations of the bench is Ritzville’s Katie Kirkendall, who played in only 12 of the Broncos’ 20 regular-season games.

Kirkendall tried out for the team only after discovering she needed an additional physical education credit to graduate.

Her coach, John Foulkes, was up front with Kirkendall about her playing prospects from the start. They weren’t good.

“I’ve had my problems with it,” the 5-10 forward admitted. “But whenever I get too down, I just talk to the coaches about it. I knew going in I wouldn’t get to play a lot, so I just try to do my best to cheer on the team.”

Kirkendall and a couple of teammates were at the scorers’ table waiting to check in during the final minute of a recent game and suffered the indignation of not having the clock stop.

“I hate that,” she said. “We’re standing there thinking, ‘God, somebody stop the clock,’ and then the final buzzer sounded. We couldn’t believe it.”

But even more frustrating for Kirkendall is being called off the bench and inserted into the game with under 10 seconds left and little or no chance of even touching the ball.

It happened the other night, but she and her teammates passed on the chance to play.

“He (Foulkes) asked us if we wanted to go in when there were like 6.9 seconds left,” Kirkendall said. “We figured by the time we get in, we’ll run down the floor once and the game will be over, so we said, ‘Nah, we’ll just stay here. But thanks anyways.”’

To Kirkendall’s credit, she has not let her role as a pine rider rob her of her pride.

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