Acute growing pains for Owls

Mary K. Knight, which took a ho-hum 11-12 record into Thursday’s quarterfinals of the State 1B girls’ basketball  tournament — along with the distinction of being the youngest team in this year’s field, showed its youth and inexperience in a big, and bad, way during a 73-11 loss to Sunnyside Christian.

The Owls, who trailed 47-4 at halftime, set a State 1B record for the lowest single point total — a mark that stood for a whole two hours, or until Columbia (Hunters) finished thundering Lopez 51-9- in the quarterfinal mismatch that followed.

Afterward, MKK coach Lance Valley admitted his girls fell victim to the state tournament “Wow factor,” which is understandable, considering Valley has four freshmen and four eighth-graders — two of whom are part of the Owls’ regular rotation — on his roster..

According to Valley, you are allowed to bring eighth graders up to play on the varsity any time there are nine or fewer girls in the entire high school, and this year Mary K. Knight has only eight.

That the Owls managed to qualify for state is remarkable in itself. During the regular season, they lost back-to-back games by scores of 55-11 and 51-19. And Taholah, the team they beat 45-37 in the secnd round of the State B, blistered the Owls 61-35 and 54-27 during the regular season.

“We had been playing better,” said Valley, whose team committed 39 turnover during Thursday’s loss, “but today we had that deer-in-the-headlights thing going on.”