Zack’s knack comes in handy
TACOMA – The state basketball tournament hadn’t lived up to Dara Zack’s hopes.
“I felt the first three games, I had been passive,” the 5-foot-9 junior forward said Saturday in the Tacoma Dome. “I wanted to be more aggressive today. I wanted to stir things up and help my team. That’s been my role all year.”
Zack achieved her goal, and that helped the University Titans reach their revamped one, earning third place in the State 4A girls basketball championships with a 53-52 win over Auburn Riverside.
“Being here in the same situation last year, we knew what it felt like to finish sixth,” Angie Bjorklund said, alluding to the Titans’ loss to Lewis and Clark at state. “We didn’t want to feel that way again. We wanted to make history.”
The Titans (25-4 and one of the pretournament favorites) did just that, posting their highest tournament finish, topping the two sixth-place trophies the school won last year and in 1990.
But it wasn’t easy. The Titans twice built 10-point leads. Twice they coughed them up in less than 4 minutes. The Ravens, who finished 22-7 with two of those losses to U-Hi, including a 68-65 non-league game in December, never led this one by more than three. The last time they got there was with 3:31 left at 48-45
From there, Bjorklund, who finished with a game-high 19, and Zack, a tournament-best 16, took over.
Bjorklund ended a 2-minute scoring drought with two free throws. Zack converted Tonya Schnibbe’s seventh assist into a layup. The Ravens’ Stephanie Wilber scored the last of her 14 points before Zack converted 1 of 2 free throws to tie it again at 50.
Oregon State-bound Julie Futch, a 5-8 guard, backed Schnibbe down and scored over her. Bjorklund missed a jumper, Auburn Riverside rebounded and called time out. With 47 seconds left, leading 52-50, the Ravens had a chance to put it away.
“I knew Futch was going to do the same thing again,” Schnibbe said of the Ravens plan as the shot clock ran down. “She goes one way and spins the other to shoot. She showed me the ball on the spin. I got a hand in there and got a piece of the ball.”
It bounced away, Bjorklund grabbed it and attacked. Futch, the Ravens’ leading scorer who hit just 2 of 13 shots, fouled her on the baseline. Two free throws, with 16 seconds left, tied it. This time the Ravens tried attacking Zack. She contested Wilber’s shot, then, in traffic, grabbed the rebound, her 10th. Nneka Payne, who led Auburn Riverside with 16 points, flew in and fouled her.
With 5.5 seconds left, Zack had two free throws to win it.
“Dara’s a kid who stays after practice for a half-hour just shooting free throws,” U-Hi coach Mark Stinson said. “I was sure she was going to knock it down.”
She was short on the first, took a deep breath and swished the second. The Ravens passed the ball into Futch, she raced up the right sideline, lost the ball, picked it up and flung it from the corner at the buzzer. Both Bjorklund and Schnibbe were there. The ball never got to the key and U-Hi had the third-place trophy.
“First would have been nice, sure,” Zack said. “The seniors deserved it. They got sixth last year, and some of them got a sixth in volleyball. We wanted more.”