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With win tonight, Jacks have chance to finish second

Feb. 20, 2009

The Quincy High School boys basketball team hasn't been in second place in the Central Washington Athletic Conference standings all season.

Given the way this crazy CWAC season has gone, it should come as no surprise, then, to find out that the Jacks have a chance to be in second place during the only time it really counts — at the conclusion of the regular season.

Back-to-back huge wins over Wapato and Ephrata over the past week have lifted Quincy into third place heading into tonight's season finale against Ellensburg. Grandview, the team the Jacks have been chasing for the conference's second spot, has lost two straight. Thusly, if Quincy (10-7) wins tonight and Grandview (11-6) loses to Toppenish, the Jacks will finish in second place, earning the tiebreaker over the Greyhounds on the basis of their two wins over Grandview during the regular season.

Since the top two teams earn two byes and an automatic trip to the district tournament semifinals, it can't be overstated how important the CWAC contenders have viewed getting one of those two spots.

"The second seed is motivation to do well against Ellensburg," Quincy head coach Wade Petersen said. "We can only take care of what we can do, but if we beat Ellensburg and Grandview ends up losing, that would give us the second seed and two byes, which is better than one bye. You win one game and go to state."

Regardless of what happens tonight, Petersen is fairly convinced that his squad has clinched no worse than the third seed to next week's district tournament thanks to the second tiebreaker (after head-to-head) procedure known as quality wins. Every win teams post are assigned a number value based on the record of the opponent. Petersen is confident Quincy's quality-wins point total is high considering the fact that the Jacks posted four of their wins against league-leading Wapato and Grandview this season.

Even if Quincy loses tonight, it will be in a three-way tie for third at 10-8 with Ellensburg and the winner of the Selah-Othello game, and in that case, Petersen thinks that his team would get third because of the quality-wins tiebreaker.

"If we win and Grandview wins, then we're third," Petersen said. "And as far as I can crunch the numbers, if we lose, I don't think there's anything that can happen (to bump us down to fourth). We're still going to be third. If we lose to Ellensburg, then they would be tied with us. We split with them this year and they split with Othello and Toppenish. So as far as I know the (first) tiebreaker is off since no one swept all the teams they are tied with. Then it goes to the strength of your wins, which we have the best score for. I am not sure about all this, but we will see. We'll find out on Sunday when I go to the coaches' meeting."

If all that proves to be indeed true, Quincy has at the very least clinched one bye in the district tournament and will host a game on Friday against a winner of one of Tuesday's first-round loser-out games.

"It's really big to be third our fourth," Petersen said. "The three and four both get a bye, so you get more time to prepare for the team that you're going to face. That's a huge advantage. You want to avoid any kind of loser-out game you can in districts. If you don't have to face a loser-out game, you're going to be good."

Ellensburg played Quincy tough on Jan. 23, when the Jacks won 41-40 in overtime. The Bulldogs are one of the taller teams in the league, featuring a frontcourt with 6-foot-6 Brian Pfeifer and 6-foot-4 Ethan Sterkel, their leading scorer.

They're unlike the majority of the teams in the CWAC in that they largely eschew a run-and-gun offensive system in favor of a more traditional half-court set to take advantage of their height.

But that could play into the Jacks' advantage once again tonight.

"They have multiple guys that can score, so that will cause a little more of a threat for our defense, and they're really big," Petersen said. "Their guards are 6-foot-2, 6-3 on top of the zone, and they're 6-6 on the back of the zone. They're really tall and long, but I think we match up OK against them. It's not too fast of a pace, and they play zone; at least they did last time. They're not going to press us super hard. I think it should be a good match-up.

"We're going to have to stop both inside and outside. If they hit their outside shots, that's going to cause our zone to expand and open up holes inside. They're good enough to score on us inside, too, so we have to make sure everybody takes care of their jobs."

Quincy is probably going to have to play better tonight than it did on Tuesday night against Ephrata. Senior forward Eric Martin made his third game-winning shot of the year, dropping in a lay-up over Tiger defender Ross Buchert at the buzzer to give the Jacks a thrilling 39-37 win.

But the Jacks' offense wasn't functioning very smoothly all night — Petersen called the team's execution "sloppy," and they shot just 31 percent from the field. Petersen also said the team gave up too many easy shots to the Tigers.

The coach still doesn't think his team is playing its best basketball, but the good news is that there's still time.

"We're practicing hard and the kids are really getting focused in practice, and that's a good sign," Petersen said. "I've seen these kids play so many games; most of these kids have played (varsity) since they were freshmen, so I've seen them play for a long time, and I know what they're capable of. So when I say we're not playing to our full potential, that's based on how much I've seen them play. I've seen them play a lot better. The effort can be better, the execution can be better, all those things that we have total control over, we can get better at. We're not fully there yet."

• The Quincy girls basketball team doesn't have a lot of wins this season, but the Lady Jacks are going to compete for an honor that is in a lot of ways more important than a league title.

Quincy is a WIAA State Academic State Championship 2A finalist this season. The Lady Jacks' cumulative grade-point average from the first semester was 3.75. According to Quincy High School, senior Colleen Knodell, juniors Dayanna Lopez, Marisol Lopez, Taylor Kunkel, Cristina Figueroa, Amanda Misasi, Kayla Horning and Jaclyn Lerma and sophomores Devyn Hinkins and Jazmine Perez had grade-point averages of 3.5 or above in the fall semester.

"I am very proud of this group of student athletes," said head coach Cully Donovan. "They have done a great job of balancing basketball and academics."

Quincy (4-13) concludes its regular season at home tonight against Ellensburg, then open the district tournament on Tuesday on the road against an undetermined opponent in a loser-out game.

Contact Doug Flanagan at reporter@qvpr.com or through Facebook:

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