Hills Hurt That Anyone Would Write Off Her Team

Heidi Hills took offense when she heard people were writing off her Edmonds-Woodway team because of her knee injury.

"That kind of hurt me," the 6-foot senior said after the Warriors drilled Rogers of Puyallup 61-34 yesterday. "We have a lot of talent on this team. If everyone rises to the occasion like they did (last night), I think we can do great."

Hills, who has committed to the University of Washington, injured her right knee last Friday, but didn't discover the severity of the injury until Tuesday when it was diagnosed as a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament. She has scheduled another consultation with her doctor tomorrow and likely will have arthroscopic surgery to determine the extent of the damage. Hills said she isn't sure whether she'll need reconstructive surgery.

"All I can do now is cheer on my team and be there for morale," she said.

One of her biggest cheers came in the final seconds when her sophomore sister, Molly, scored the Warriors' final basket.

Washington Coach Chris Gobrecht said surgery could result in Hills not being ready for the next UW season (practices begin Nov. 1).

Gobrecht made it clear that Hills' scholarship is intact.

"We would never change our commitment to her," Gobrecht said.

Strange plays of the day -- The Port Angeles girls went 10 minutes and 39 seconds without scoring during the first half of their lopsided loss to Lake Washington. Becky Martin scored an uncontested layin to end the drought when Lake Washington Coach Boyd Childs kept his players in the timeout huddle too long.

The other strange play of the day came when Lakes' Keisha Martin got disoriented on an out-of-bounds play and wound up scoring a basket for Kamiakin with the game already well out of hand (Kamiakin led 48-29 at the time). Scorekeepers officially gave the field goal to Ari Skorpik, the Kamiakin player closest to the basket at the time.

Notes

-- Kentridge Coach Brian Pendleton was given the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association's sportsmanship award for the Kentridge-Shadle Park game yesterday after extending some pregame generosity to the boys from Spokane. Each school's colors are green and gold. Each team chose its all-gold uniforms for the game.

"My manager noticed them before warmups," Pendleton said. Shadle Park, because it was the designated visitor for the game, was required to change. But the Highlanders had not brought another set of jerseys. Pendleton was ready - and more importantly, willing - to have his team change into its other uniforms. "I always have them bring both in case something crazy happens," he said.

-- Governor Booth Gardner was courtside for three Class AA games. "I came here to watch some good basketball games," Gardner said. "I planned to watch Lakeside and Sehome and the Mount Vernon-Battle Ground game, and this game (Garfield-Grandview) was in between. This is a good game, too."

-- Don't overlook Sedro-Woolley's Justin Rayment. Rayment, the leading scorer for the Northwest League's "other" team is ahead of Mount Vernon's Mark Hendrickson in Skagit County's all-time career scoring list. Rayment is in sixth place with 1,327 points. Hendrickson is in eighth with 1,274. Rayment needs 18 points to take fifth place - passing former Mount Vernon player Tim Caviezel, who plays for Washington.

-- Some of the more outstanding performances of the Class AA girls tournament came from freshmen and sophomores.

Freshman point guard Shana Ray carried Lynnwood to a missed three-point field goal of upsetting No. 4-ranked Kennedy, scoring 18 points. Freshman center Takiya Jackson paced No. 1 Lakeside past No. 4 Sehome with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Sophomore center Wendy Kuipers had 17 points and 13 rebounds and sophomore guard Erin Caviezel, sister of UW guard Tim Caviezel, had 19 points as Mount Vernon knocked off Fife. Sophomore point guard Kari Ambrose had 22 points for Sehome, and sophomore forward Beth Hamrick pulled down 10 rebounds for Prairie.

-- Today's Lynnwood-Blanchet AA girls loser-out game was a reunion for the Bruns family. Rich Bruns is the coach of Lynnwood's Royals, who lost to Kennedy, 52-50, yesterday. His sister, Shelly Bruns, is an assistant coach with Blanchet. Rich, the older of the two and a former star basketball player at Lynnwood and later at Simon Fraser College, has the edge in seniority, but friends insist that Shelly was the better athlete - playing four years at Western Washington University. Shelly also was the coach at Lynnwood before Rich took the team.

-- The players' names in the girls AA tournament tend to fall into two categories, flora and fluid.

In the flora division: Jessica Berry (Battle Ground), Cherry Flowers (Sealth), Maureen Bee (Mount Vernon), Missy Moss (Prairie), Heather Voss (Lynnwood), Kira Grass (Fife) and Tina Vinyard (Fife).

Running with the fluid theme: Resa Watterson and Renae Van Dam (Enumclaw), Jamie Sealock (Hanford), Kim Kettel and Kim Brydges (Mount Vernon), Marina Cardenas (Sunnyside). And in the sub-category of islands, there was Caroline Gilligan (Blanchet) and Amy Whidby (Fife).

by far the most popular name in the girls tournament this year is Jennifer. There are 10 Jennifers - including Jenny, Jeni and Jenn.

-- Kennedy's Amy Kuchan will almost certainly move onto the top-10 list of tournament career scorers with today's quarterfinal game with defending champion Battle Ground. Through three tournaments, Kuchan has 125 points. The 10th spot on the list belongs to Adrianne Doyle of Elma with 126 points.

Times staff reporters Hugo Kugiya, Sandy Ringer, Steve Christilaw, Gordon Wittenmyer and Dick Rockne contributed to this report.