TACOMA — A clash of styles awaits the Neah Bay boys basketball team in its regional matchup with Three Rivers Christian, while the Red Devil girls will face a young Bickleton Pirates squad in their regional contest.
The games are set for a Saturday doubleheader at Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma. The girls play first at 2 p.m., and the boys at 4 p.m.
A win by either team will lead to a repeat trip to the 1B state tournament in Spokane starting Thursday.
This would make five straight state trips for the Neah Bay boys, and would be the second consecutive, and seventh in the past eight seasons for the Red Devils girls.
The Fourth-ranked Neah Bay boys (17-3) will look to impose their style of play against Three Rivers Christian (18-3), by pushing the pace offensively and using pressure defense to keep the Eagles off balance.
Three Rivers will counter by throwing a variety of zone defenses at Neah Bay, using its height advantage and trying to slow the game down, according to former Peninsula Daily News sports writer Matt Schubert, who now covers the team as sports editor of The [Longview] Daily News.
“Three Rivers Christian is a team built on the defensive end,” Schubert said.
“The Eagles play a variety of zone defenses and generally try to use their length and anticipation to disrupt other teams’ offenses.
“They generally like to slow the game down to a glacial pace and tend to struggle when they cannot.”
Three Rivers also hasn’t played the caliber of competition as Neah Bay.
“Outside of beating Taholah once and Tulalip Heritage once, there aren’t a whole lot of marquee wins for TRC,” Schubert said.
“They dominate a weak league where no team is able to stay within single digits of them.”
Neah Bay has two wins against Taholah, including a 31-point thumping in January. The Red Devils also beat up on Tulalip Heritage by 26 in the Tri-District tournament, a team Three Rivers Christian defeated 57-53 in the regular season.
Three Rivers Christian does boast six players over 6 feet tall, so the Red Devils must box out and battle for offensive and defensive rebounds.
Neah Bay girls
The Neah Bay girls (18-1) will look to stop Bickleton’s top player, 5-foot-10 post Lindsay Brown.
Brown dropped 23 points, 11 rebounds, eight steals, four blocks and three assists in the Pirates’ 60-31 winner-to-regionals victory over the Taholah Chitwins last Saturday.
Another strong player for Bickleton (13-8) is junior point guard Hannah Pond, who went for a triple-double against Taholah, knocking down 14 points, with 11 rebounds and 10 assists.
The Pirates also have experienced the rough-and-tumble aspect of postseason play.
“The refs let the girls play. It was quite a bit more physical than what we were used to,” Bickleton coach Teresa Gannon told The [Sunnyside] Daily Sun News after the Taholah game.
The Red Devils will look to senior post Faye Chartraw offensively, with Kaela Tyler, Jessica Greene, Tristin Johnson and Gina McCaulley all able to hit from outside.
McCaulley and Greene will likely alternate coverage duties on Pond, while Chartraw should match up with Brown down low.
Both games will be broadcast live by Forks Radio 1490 AM and online at www.forksradio.com.
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-452-2345, ext. 5250 or at mcarman@peninsualdailynews.com.
