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Chelan 58, Cashmere 39
Game 9. (Loser out)
At Eastmont High School

Chelan and Cascade will meet for the fourth time this season Thursday night. If past scores are an indicator, there aren't two more evenly matched teams around.
These clubs were separated by a total of seven points in three previous meetings. Cascade won twice, by margins of three and 1 points, during the regular season. Chelan reversed the score, winning by three in the opening round of the district tournament, on the Cascade floor.
Cascade faces the problem of stopping the Angie Coleman-Suzy Lavender combination, which produced 38 points on twin 19-point performances Tuesday night.
"There were double-teaming and triple-teaming Angie," said Chelan coach Jim Talley of the Cashmere defensive strategy, but tonight Suzy was hitting."
Coleman had a tough time getting free in the first half, but with Lavender hitting, the more freedom Coleman enjoyed.
While Cashmere was collapsing on Coleman in the first half, Lavender was pouring in six field goals.
Cashmere made a game of it for much of the first half by playing tough defense, rebounding strongly and getting some outside firepower from LaRae Smith.
Chelan broke away, to a 34-19 intermission lead, in the late stages of the first half and owned a 26-point, 51-25 margin late in the third period.
All reserves played the final four minutes for both clubs.
Chelan guards Amy Sturtz and Gail DiPrete were important contributors to the win.
Smith connected five times from long range in the first half and finished with 12 points. Reserve Monica Miller showed a good shooting touch for Cashmere.

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Cascade-Leavenworth 54, Quincy 50
Game 10. (Loser out)
At Eastmont High School

"I'm very proud of these girls," said Cascade coach Bob Bullis in his tribute to his Kodiaks, who had been beaten twice by Quincy this season, once in overtime and on another occasion when they surrendered a big lead. "They've come a long ways."
Bullis figures his girls can give any team in the district a battle if the Kodiaks put together four quarters of basketball, which is what they did Tuesday night.
"We got our four quarters tonight," said Bullis, whose Kodiaks were supported by a sizable, and noisy, delegation from the upper valley.
They needed four quarters of solid effort to beat a good Quincy team, and overcome a highly productive Peggy Weinand in the second half.
The two clubs hooked up in a dandy battle.
Quincy, which had trailed by as many as 10 points (26-16), caught the Kodiaks at 37-all in the first minute of the fourth quarter on baskets by Weinand (set up by Nikki Pusey's feed) and Tracy Schultz.
Cascade, after surviving one of its own turnovers, suddenly responded with a scoring blitz. Two good passes to the inside set up Shannon Williams and Gail Gagnon with baskets that ignited the Kodiak offense, and Cascade quickly struck for two more field goals after Quincy turnovers to get control.
The Kodiaks owned a 49-40 lead with 3:20 to play, but the Jacks once again came back to make a thriller of it, trailing by only three points twice in the last minute.
Bullis pointed to the four field goals by Williams, the 5-10 freshman, in the fourth quarter as being one of the keys. There were others:
"Tammy Trelford had the hot hand most of the night," said Bullis of his 5-3 guard who scored 13 points, hurting Quincy from outside.
Also, Kathy Hansen did her usual uncanny job of moving the basketball, continually setting up her teammates for scores. She was credited with 14 assists. And Gretchen Freund dragged down 13 rebounds.
Cascade was shooting 1-and-1s at the free throw line before the end of the first quarter, a situation that was not at all to the liking of Quincy coach Mike Haerling.

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Cascade-Leavenworth 39, Chelan 37
Game 11. (Loser out)
At Eastmont High School

Cascade, backed by the largest contingent of fans in the gym, eliminated Chelan when a shot by Suzy Lavender in her attempt to send the game into overtime bounced off the rim as the final buzzer sounded.
Although the scoreboard point total advanced only one notch in the final 3:37 of the game, Cascade's victory over Chelan provided plenty of excitement down the stretch.
For Cascade, Miss Clutch turned out to be Gretchen Freund, who scored one fourth-quarter basket, but more importantly drew a foul, grabbed a rebound and hit a clutch free throw, all in the final 13 seconds.
It was the fourth meeting of the season for the two schools, the Kodiaks won three, and in each game Cascade led comfortably early. And in all four games, Chelan made it exciting at the end.
The familiar script went this way: Cascade cruised to a 23-8 lead in the second period (cut to 27-19 at the half). It was 36-29 on Freund's basket early in the fourth quarter but Chelan's Amy Sturtz hit three long-range baskets, sandwiched around a Gail Gagnon two-pointer for Cascade, making the score, 38-37, at the 3:37 mark.
Both sides went through a series of frustrations the rest of the way, until the last six seconds.
It was then that Freund hit her free throw, she had been fouled in a non-bonus situation at the 13-second mark, enabling Cascade to keep possession.
Finally, the game boiled down to a jump ball at the Chelan end with two seconds left. Chelan got the tip but Lavender's shot from the top of the key just fell short.
"Chelan came back on us every time this year," said Cascade coach Bob Bullis. "Chelan has a heckuva club. They're really competitors. We'd like to play them 10 times a year because we are so competitive with each other."
Chelan coach Jim Talley agreed that the teams are "pretty evenly matched.  We need more maturity. We came back strong all right but we missed the ones we needed to make. We expect our sophomores to be our leaders out there and that's tough." 

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Ephrata 37, Tonasket 34
Game 12. (Championship, winner to state)
At Eastmont High School

With the outcome squarely on the line in the final minutes of play, the Ephrata Tigers made all the right moves and as a result reign as girls North Central District basketball champions for the second straight year.
Coach Don King's Orange and Black survived a two-point first quarter to overcome the Tonasket Tigers at Eastmont High Thursday night, avenging two regular-season losses to the Caribou Trail League champions.
It was Ephrata's third straight state tournament earning victory, in King's third year as head coach. Only once in eight years of state tournament play has the Grant County girls team failed to qualify.
Ephrata's tournament-experienced surfaced in the fourth quarter, the Orange hit seven of nine fourth-period field goal attempts, just in time to earn the district title.
"Realistically, we beat them at their own game," said King. "We like to run and press but we haven't been able to do either in any of the games. Tonasket plays such good defense, the best in the league. So we went with a bigger lineup and played conservatively on offense."
Ephrata stacked its offense on with one side of the court and used a system of plays out of the four-girl alignment. Although it took awhile to work, Tonasket led 8-2 after one period, by the fourth quarter the patience had developed into wide open shots, and key baskets.
With Mary Beth Nelson, Ephrata's 6-2 sophomore post, bottled up inside. Ephrata turned to its wing attack. Becky Wiersma, Hazel Hahne, Michelle Tommer, Cindy Carpenter and Lori Chamberlain combined to produced Ephrata's seven fourth-quarter field goals.
Tommer's basket with 1:39 to play gave Ephrata its biggest lead of the game, 36-31, and Chris Longworth's free throw with 18 seconds to play, virtually clinched the victory and also created the final score.
For Tonasket, it was a frustrating evening.
The Okanogan County Tigers could have blown the game wide open early. Tonasket, its offense running smoothly in the first half, got plenty of good shots, 31 compared to 19 for Ephrata, but finished the half 6-of-31 from the field. Instead of a big lead, Tonasket found itself with only a 14-12 advantage at intermission. Tonasket still led, 24-22, entering the final period.
"We played our tempo all night," said Tonasket coach Bill Myhr. "We had the shots we wanted but they wouldn't go in."
Tonasket's offense never did get going, mustering only 14 field goals in 54 attempts (26%). That hot fourth quarter period enabled Ephrata to finish with a respectable 18-of-40 (45%) from the floor.
Although Tonasket owned a huge edge in rebounding (32-18), Ephrata intimidating inside defense (the rangy Nelson and 6-0 Tommer) caused numerous Tonasket shots to stray off target.
Nelson was particularly effective in the final minutes of play, blocking one shot, causing a travel violation an feeding Carpenter for a key basket.
Tonasket's Kendra Curtis was held to nine points by the Ephrata zone but both Teri Devereaux and DeAnn Erickson picked up the slack, combining for 19 points. Erickson scored all her nine points in the second half, mainly from the perimeter, to keep Tonasket in contention.

Tonasket 48, Cascade-Leavenworth 29
Game 13. (Winner #2 to state, loser out)
At Eastmont High School

Coach Bill Myhr calls the Tonasket basketball team that Saturday night clinched the school's first-ever state tournament berth "a very special bunch of girls."
They're "special" for a variety of reasons.
As a team, the varsity has combined a grade-point average of 3.61. There are seven "four points" on the varsity, Myhr said.
"I have all those girls back (next season)," Myhr noted. Actually four players, including starters Chris Veit and Teri Devereaux, graduate.
When DeAnn Erickson transferred to Tonasket from Wenatchee, after completing the cross country season last fall, "She completed the chemistry" that enabled the Tigers to build a 22-2 record this season.
She transferred because her dad, Mel Erickson, had taken a teaching job at Tonasket. Erickson, who once helped current Cascade coach Bob Bullis, is an assistant coach for the Tigers.
He's described as "a super teacher, a super man" my Myhr, who also credited his other assistant, Eric Anderson, with being a most valuable contributor.
Tonasket's win in the district second-place game Saturday night is "kind of special," said Myhr, "because it's the first time for the girls (to state).
"It's important to girls athletics in general at Tonasket."
Bullis echoed that sentiment as it applies to Cascade.
The fact that Cascade came together as a team in a relatively short time, with the combined forces of Leavenworth and Peshastin-Dryden (following last year's consolidation), "was really pleasing," he said. That fact, coupled the tremendous crowd support the Kodiak girls receive, "will help the program."  

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