Coach Could Smile, After All

All things considered, Rogers-Puyallup coach Rod Iverson isn’t complaining because he couldn’t savor his team’s buzzer-beating win over Ferris Wednesday afternoon.

It wasn’t until well after the Rams’ stunning 40-39 defeat of the Saxons that he learned his wife of 32 years was well.

Of course, it was only because Connie Iverson was sick that her husband wasn’t panicked when he learned there was a hostage situation at the bank where his wife is manager.

Connie Iverson wasn’t in the crowd for the first-round game of the State 4A boys basketball tournament at the Kingdome, but she had told her husband she might stay home because she wasn’t feeling well. He knew she didn’t go to work at the Seafirst Bank in Auburn.

It was after the game, when his son-in-law told him Connie wasn’t at home, that Rod Iverson feared she might be one of six hostages.

“When I hear she wasn’t home,” he said, “then I assumed that she had to be there.”

The team celebrated, but Iverson was left to wait and worry. He was sitting in the Kingdome stands when relief arrived, in the form of a smiling vice principal bearing good news.

Connie Iverson learned of the hostage situation on television and had gone to another Seafirst branch to monitor the situation.

The hostages were released before the gunman shot himself and was arrested by the police SWAT team, which stormed the bank.

Unequal

The equalizer didn’t work for the Tahoma girls basketball team.

The Bears opened the tournament with a 63-38 loss to Richland, but they made their mark with a tournament record 40 3-point attempts.

“It’s the equalizer,” Bears coach Calvin McHenry said, “if you pass the ball well.”

And shoot, which the Bears didn’t, making just seven 3s.

Tahoma’s defense did what it was supposed to, forcing 27 Richland turnovers, but the offense was not only cold, it turned the ball over 22 times itself.

McHenry had learned the high-pressure game after his good friend Terry Reed asked him to become an assistant at Lewis and Clark High in Spokane. Ten years ago, the two guided the Tigers to second place.

“When we came here, most teams were playing the same style as the boys, slow down, patient,” McHenry said. “We had so many athletes, we said why don’t we utilize that … make other teams try to match our athleticism.”

The difference between these Bears and those Tigers, though, was Dory Reeves. Reeves was the big post who ruled as the Greater Spokane League’s all-time leading scorer until she was passed by Central Valley’s Crystal Lee last year.

“I think when (the girls first started), coaches wanted to work the clock,” McHenry said. “Now, we look for a good shot quicker.”

The Bears average between 34 and 40 3-point attempts a game. The record at state was 27 set by Shorewood last year. Kamiakin holds the mark for made 3s at nine. McHenry anticipates his team breaking that mark.

After helping Reed, McHenry took Hazen to state in 1991 before moving on to Tahoma, which is in Maple Valley, southeast of Seattle.

“Richland did a good job controlling the tempo, slowing it down,” McHenry said. “Basically, our shots didn’t fall… . It took too long for us to shake off being here.”

Woulda, coulda, shoulda

You can’t blame GSL teams for wondering what might have been when they watch the Inglemoor girls.

In a year when Mead’s Allie Bailey was the only 6-foot post in the GSL, the Vikings start 6-7 Cori Enghusen in the middle.

Stanford-bound Enghusen is the tallest senior player in the country. She averages 12 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks for the 16-9 Vikings.

She coulda been a Titan, or a Bear, or a Saxon or …

Enghusen’s father, Eric, is a 1982 graduate of U-Hi and, although his daughter was born in Renton, he returned to Spokane, where his daughter attended University Elementary through second grade.

His saleman’s job then took him to Bothell, where he is now self-employed.

Cori Enghusen’s grandmother and uncle still live in the Valley and she has two aunts on the South Hill. With her relatives so spread out, University isn’t the only team that might wonder what its season would have been like with Enghusen in the middle.

“Spokane teams are really good,” she said after Inglemoor’s first-round win, “but I wouldn’t want to be on any other team.”

Cori will play in Spokane this summer on the Stars’ 18U team.

It’s not as if Inglemoor needed her as much as every team in the GSL. The Vikings start 6-5 sophomore Brina Chaney and have a 6-1 and three 6-foot players on their roster.

Double dribbles

Only three players in the 4A boys tournament have signed Division I scholarships, Prairie’s 6-8 Zach Gourde, who is going to Gonzaga, and Franklin teammates Will Hendricks (6-7) and Anthony Lewis (6-5), bound for Arizona State and Idaho, respectively… . The girls have Enghusen, Central Valley’s Rikki Jackson (Idaho), Bothell’s Becki Ashbaugh (Santa Clara) and Jennae Krell (Idaho), Enumclaw’s Erin Johansson (UNLV), Sehome’s Sarah Onion (UNLV) and Columbia River’s Jessica Malone (Gonzaga).

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo