"What do you think of this?" asked the Yelm coach, slipping on a pair of glasses he found. "We've been so tight."

The humor wasn't necessary.

Yelm had its own comic relief, a 53-41 victory against Chehalis, keeping the Tornados' 3A state playoff hopes alive another game.

"Before the game, coach said all the pressure was on them," said Yelm's T.J. Rogich, who scored 12 points. "They won the league and no one expected us to beat them. We played relaxed."

Yelm, which hasn't reached the state tournament since 1972, faces Columbia River today at 2 p.m. at Saint Martin's College, with the winner advancing. It's a rematch of the district playoffs. The Tornados lost to Columbia River after leading 18-6 at halftime.

"This sounds like a cliche, but this was a team win," Gerrits said. "I could talk for hours about how great every one of our players played. They're playing unselfish. They're playing with heart."

While Yelm boys were all smiles, things weren't so cheerful for the Yelm girls on Friday. They were eliminated from the district tournament as they lost 56-44 to Chehalis, a team the Tornados had beaten twice earlier in the season.

Yelm boys never trailed, leading 11-6 after the first quarter and opening a 24-6 lead with a 13-0 run to start the second quarter.

Rogich hit back-to-back 3-pointers in that stretch.

"That helped get us fired up," said Rogich, who leads the team with a 16-point average.

The closest Chehalis came was eight points, pulling to 42-33 with five minutes left in the game. But Jason Summers, who led the Tornados with 18 points, cooled any notions of a comeback with a 3-pointer.

"Jason hit some clutch 3-pointers again for us tonight," Rogich said.

Chehalis, which split with Yelm during the regular season, winning by 12 and losing by one, played much of the game without 6-foot-6 Keegan Fulton. The all-league player was benched early in the game for a disagreement with his coach.

He finished with zero points, 21 below his season average.

"It's a personal issue between me and the coach," Fulton said about being benched. "Sitting and watching is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life."

With Fulton's 21 points on the bench, Yelm was able to suffocate Chehalis' offense with a pressing defense.

"It's a lot less stressful without Keegan in there," Rogich said. "He's a heck of a player. When he gets the ball inside, he's tough to stop."

The Yelm girls defeated Chehalis by 21 and 7 points earlier in the season, using a hustling full-court press that forced turnover after turnover. On Friday, Chehalis did a better job of handling that pressure.

"We couldn't get the ball over the halfcourt line against them in that second game," Chehalis coach Henri Weeks said. "We knew they'd come at us with pressure. We worked on it."

Besides handling the pressure, Chehalis, winner of seven of its last eight games, also dominated the boards, holding a 59-35 rebounding edge. In Yelm's two wins against Chehalis, the Bearcats two 6-foot-1 players didn't dominate the game. They did Friday as Bri Thompson and Ashley Wakefield combined for 31 points and 24 rebounds.

"We're vertically challenged," Yelm coach Russ Riches said. "They have the size advantage. To compensate, we have to pressure. Tonight they did a much better job of handling that pressure."

Yelm led 15-11 after the first quarter but trailed 26-23 at halftime.

Trailing 43-38 going into the fourth quarter, Yelm made just 2 of 12 shots in the fourth quarter as Chehalis continued to pull away.

"We struggled against their pressure before," Thompson said. "But this time our guards did a better job of handling their defense. This time we were able to use our height advantage."

Thompson, a three-time all-league player who will play at Binghamton University next year, finished with 14 points. In the previous two games against Yelm, she scored 7 and 21, 14 of that coming on free throws.

Wakefield, a 6-1 junior center, was the other Tornado-tamer, scoring a season-high 19 points, most of which came on offensive putbacks. She didn't score more than five points in the previous two losses to Yelm.

"We killed them on the offensive boards," said Thompson, who pulled down 14 rebounds. "That was the difference."

To slow down Yelm's Rachel Craig, who scored nine points in the first quarter, Chehalis used a box-and-one defense.

"That was the most pressure I've faced," said Craig, who finished with 19 points.

Yelm finished the season at 17-6, a school record for wins. Chehalis improved to 14-9.

"This loss hurts," said Craig, wiping away tears. "It was our dream to make the state tournament. This is as bad as it gets."

The Olympian Online

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