Prep Basketball / State Tournament Recap -- Sehome Steals Show At State -- Domination Of Decatur Caps Perfect Season

Next!

Next?

Anybody? Who's up for a little five-on-five?

It can't just end like this. The Sehome Mariners can't be done.

"These guys got better and better," Coach Pat Fitterer said of his top-ranked boys basketball team after it beat Decatur 81-42 in Saturday night's Class AAA state title game. "If they'd keep playing, they'd just keep winning."

Who would stop them, after all?

No. 2 Evergreen of Vancouver? The boys from Bellingham whupped up on Evergreen, last year's state champ, by 19 in Friday's semifinals.

No. 3 Mount Vernon? Sehome went 4-0 against its Western AAA Conference rival this season, winning the final meeting by 30 points.

No. 4 Redmond? That was a 25-point state quarterfinal victory.

For anything close to the level of prep basketball displayed by the first team in state history to win 30 games, you have to go out of the state. Or go back.

Back to one of the great Garfield teams - 1974? 1980? 1991? - or to Mercer Island's 1985 squad or to Jawann Oldham's Cleveland boys in the mid-'70s. Or maybe Everett in 1940.

Maybe.

Find them all. And bring 'em on.

That's the only kind of tournament that can begin to answer all the questions Sehome raised with its performance this season.

"There's no question this team has to be in the top five all-time," said Mercer Island Coach Ed Pepple, a head coach in the state since 1957.

"They're totally together. They're unselfish and have a lot of fun. They're aggressive, and they play with a lot of emotion, but they're under control."

Four in the all-senior starting lineup - guards Jared Stevenson and Jeff Chapman, and forwards Ryan Kettman and Keith Koskela - played basketball together since fifth grade. The fifth, 6-foot-7 senior center Mark Spink, made his varsity debut this season and became one of four Mariners to average in double figures scoring this season and became the top center in the tournament.

Spink, Stevenson and Chapman made the all-tournament first team. Kettman made second team.

"I love that team," Pepple said. "In the last 20 years, there's only a couple of teams that can match them in terms of commitment and playing together."

Only one team in 72 state AAA boys title games ever won the championship game by more than Sehome's 39-point margin Saturday: the 1940 Everett Seagulls, who beat Oakville 64-19.

And that 39-point margin over Decatur matched only the seventh highest Sehome victory margin this season.

The Mariners (30-0) averaged a 32-point win. They won six games by more than 40 and three by 50 or more.

Weak league, you say?

In their first season up from Class AA since the early 1980s, they won their four AAA tournament games by an average of 24.5 points. Their lowest margin of victory this season was 11; lowest in the tournament, 15.

Along the way, they beat three league champions and two of the three teams that tied for another league championship.

Only the 12th AAA boys team to finish unbeaten, Sehome might have finished stronger than it started despite opening the season with seven wins by 43, 53, 36, 25, 50, 45 and 56 points.

After all, the Mariners held the state's top player, Quincy Wilder, to a season-low 13 points in the final.

Chapman certainly finished strong, scoring all but one of his 28 points on nine-for-14 three-point shooting and breaking tournament records for most treys made in a game and in a tournament (18). He also tied the mark for most attempted in a tournament (37).

The win gave Sehome its first boys basketball title in the school's 30-year history.

And gave the argument over the greatest teams of all time one more contender.

"This is a dream team," Fitterer said.

Other late title games

Class AAA girls - Guard Stacy Clinesmith scored 26 points, including three free throws down the stretch, as No. 3 Mead outlasted No. 2 Kamiakin 44-41 for the Class AAA girls state championship. The Panthers (26-3), who won the title in 1990 and 1992, had lost both games with Kamiakin earlier in the school year, once in the regular season and again in the playoffs.

Emily Autrey had 11 points and Kristen Willis 10 for the Braves (26-2), who finished fourth last year and were looking for their second state title. Clinesmith, who hit seven of 18 field-goal attempts and nine of 15 free-throw attempts, was voted most valuable player in the tournament. Her two free throws gave the Panthers a 43-39 lead with 25.1 seconds left.

Class AA boys - Reserve guard Matt Gardner sank five of eight three-point shots as No. 5 Gig Harbor rolled to a 60-45 victory over No. 2 West Valley of Yakima to win the Class AA boys state championship. The Tides (25-2) never trailed, zipping from a 6-0 lead to advantages of 15-2 going into the second quarter, 31-16 at halftime and 43-29 after three quarters.

Gardner scored 17 points for the Tides, who won their first state title and shot 50 percent from the field while holding West Valley to 28 percent. The highest Gig Harbor had finished was third place in 1984.

The second-place finish was also the highest yet for the Rams (25-3), who had never done better than fifth place and had a 20-game winning streak going into the final. Bryan McLaughlin led West Valley with 17 points.