Ellensburg holds its ground

YAKIMA, Wash. — Casey Kelleher had one thing on her mind: Don’t let the big girl take the baseline.

Kelleher and her Ellensburg teammates had been beaten all game long on baseline drives by one or the other of Black Hills’ 6-foot-1 posts, Chelsea Haskey and Danielle Swain. And as the game clock ticked down into the final 15 seconds of Ellensburg’s thrilling 52-49 victory over the third-ranked Wolves with the Bulldogs holding a tenuous two-point lead, the only thing between Swain and the basket was Kelleher.

“They’re strong girls and they go up strong,” Kelleher said. “I was trying to step, like, practically out of bounds so there was no way she could get around me.”

Were Swain to get to the baseline, as she and Haskey had so often in combining for 30 points already, she could go in a layup to tie the game.

Ellensburg's Kim Kelly wrestles a loose ball away from Black Hills' Courtney Johnson in the first half of their class 2A state tournament game at the Yakima SunDome Wednesday, March 11, 2009. (Kris Holland/Yakima Herald-Republic)

“That was one of the things we talked about in our timeouts: Everything they did was baseline,” Bulldogs coach Craig Faire said. “Especially (Swain), she’s so tough. I talked to Casey and said, ‘OK, what are they going to do if they get the ball down there?’ They’re going to baseline. OK, well, then overplay it.”

And Kelleher did. Swain, a powerful senior whose 18 rebounds very nearly lifted the Wolves to the victory, whirled to her left to the baseline — and there was nowhere to go. So she tried a two-handed pass over Kelleher’s head to Haskey, and Kelleher snatched the ball right out of her hands with 11 seconds remaining.

“That,” Kelleher said, “was kind of like the weight lifting right off us.”

But the Bulldogs’ victory — and their 4 p.m. quarterfinal date against No. 4 Lynden — wasn’t yet in the bank. The Wolves, forced to foul to get the ball back, sent sophomore guard Shannon Bland to the line with five seconds remaining.

She missed the first of her two shots — the Bulldogs’ fourth miss in five free throws over the final 1:24. Faire called a timeout.

“I just wanted to reassure her,” he said, “to tell her she makes free throws like this in practice all the time.”

But with five ticks of the clock remaining in a two-point game, the wait was still unnerving for Bland.

“That kind of threw me,” Bland admitted. “But everybody was telling me I could do it, that they had faith in me.

“I had to think, OK, be casual, but I’m pretty sure my body was freaking.”

As she stepped up to the line, the referee noticed her jersey was untucked and, smiling, suggested she tuck it in. Bland smiled back and did so. And suddenly the nerves went away.

She swished the second shot for a 3-point lead that, against a team intent on working the ball inside — the Wolves (21-3)  were just 1-for-6 on 3-pointers — turned out to be plenty. The Bulldogs (17-8) forced a turnover with a second left, and the CWAC had its first quarterfinalist of the day.

Kelleher finished with 13 points, joining Kim Kelly (13) and Deaira Gordon (12) in double figures, while Bland — “our little bumblebee, our buzzsaw,” Faire noted — sparked the Bulldogs’ defense with her frenetic ballhawking.

“The last couple of years probably the two toughest leagues in the state has been that one they’re in, Black Hills with River Ridge and Tumwater and Elma and them, and the CWAC,” Faire said, adding that the CWAC is good preparation for state-tournament competition. “We do see the pressure, get to play these tough teams night in and night out.”
“We know,” Bland said, “we’re good enough.”