Knights Earn Berth With Decision of PA

East Knights face the Ballard Beavers at 11:50 a.m. Wednesday in the third game of the last 16-team state class AA high school basketball tournament in Washington.

Win or lose in their opener, the Knights the next day will take on either Hudson’s Bay of Vancouver or another Seattle quintet, Roosevelt, in the double-elimination classic.

Saturday night the Knights of coach Les Eathorne defensed the Port Angeles Roughriders right out of the West gym and the state tournament.  The Knights won the local “district” class AA playoff championship, 45-38, behind the 14 points of forward Mike Holen and the 12 of guard John Tracy.

Statistics

THE PRESSING, hustling, checking Knights didn’t allow a single Roughrider into double figures. In fact, the ‘Riders were seldom allowed across midcourt by the ball-hawking Knights. When the ‘Riders did get into forecourt, the constantly pecking defense of the Knights either stole the ball or had the ‘Riders trying poor-risk shots.

The Roughriders had entered the championship final here by upsetting favored West Wildcats Friday night while the Knights were toppling the Bethel Braves from the Seamount league.

The Knights now carry their 15-win five-loss record into the big tournament in Seattle that included most of the season prep poll leaders. The Beavers, who won 12 and lost 7, gained the No. 3 state berth from the big city by defeating Franklin in a playoff of second-place divisional quintets in Seattle.

THE FIRST-DAY state draw, as announced by the Washington Interscholastics Activities association:

9 a.m.,  Blanchet (23-0) vs. Ellensburg (16-9).

10:25,  Central Valley (18-1) vs. Renton (18-0).

11:50,  East vs Ballard.

1:15,  Hudson’s Bay (18-3) vs. Roosevelt (17-2)

2:40,  Bellevue (18-1) vs. Evergreen of Vancouver (14-7)

9:15,  Wilson of Tacoma (15-6)

9:40  Garfield (16-1) vs. Lewis and Clark (18-3)

In exact imitation of the just-concluded state class A tournament at Tacoma, the draw send the No. 1 ranked team in the tourney into the first game. Blanche, Seattle parochial school which qualified through the Northwest district although it provides the metropolitan area with a fourth team to root for, was prep poll champion.

GARFIELD, entering as Seattle No. 1, is defending state champion twice over. The Bulldogs, coach by former Bremerton and University of Washington star Ron Patnoe, has claimed the state double-A two consecutive years.  They are co-favored with Blanchet in pre-tourney appraisals this time.

Peculiarity of the draw is the second game rivalry. Central Valley, the Spokane city champion, by the draw formula which sets the best from one district against a lesser team from another district, runs into unbeaten Renton I the first round. Renton was rated fourth and Central Valley fifth in the final prep polls. The formula failure resulted from the arbitrary seeding of the giant West Central district where Renton, as Puget Sound champion, comes to state listed as the district’s No. 3 team.

East appears as the district No. 2 quintet and Bellevue, Kingco league titlist, as West Central No. 1 team.

THE KNIGHTS won their state berth in the first half Saturday night. They leaped into a 10-4 first-quarter advantage and were in front 27-11 by intermission. At that point, the scoring of Holen, eight, and Tracy, six, would have been good enough for a three-point lead without further team help.

The Roughriders closed up by in a low-scoring third panel and narrowed it by five more in the fourth when the confident Knights were protecting themselves with a steady flow of free throws. In that fourth period, East sank nine of 18 charity chances.

Two ‘Riders bowed out then on personal fouls – starters Bruce Shamp and Dan Peacock – and reserve Hank Boni was benched for a deliberate offense.

This will be the second state tournament trip for East. In 1958, Eathorne took the school’s most famous cagers – Lyle Bakken, Danny Stautz and Ron Olson – among other – to an eventual fifth-place finish at state after an opening-day tourney loss.