It wasn’t the way the Spartan girls basketball team wanted to finish their final run for the state Class 1A championship. The fire wasn’t there as Freeman beat Granger 56-35 on Saturday night at the SunDome.

The Granger Spartans boys ended a successful season, going 24-2 with both losses occurring at the Class 1A state tournament at the SunDome.

It was a movie-like ending for the Wapato Wolves as they captured the CWAC district championship on Saturday at Sunnyside, upsetting the No. 2 state ranked Ephrata Tigers, 78-76.  It was Ephrata’s second loss of the season, both games were losses to the Wildcats.  Wapato now takes the No. 1 seed into the Class 2A state tournament which begins Wednesday at the SunDome in Yakima.

The White Swan boys and girls teams both have had very successful seasons heading into district play with only one team to state in both.  The boys were able to down Riverside Christian 53-48 on Thursday, Feb. 25 in West Valley and secure a state berth while the White Swan girls fell short and lost to the top-ranked La Salle Lightning 69-61.  The loss ended the White Swan girls’ season.

WAPATO 77, SELAH 67
By virtue of a second place finish in CWAC league play, the Wapato Wolves had a bye and automatically qualified for a semi-final district game against Selah on Saturday, Feb. 27 at Wapato gym.

Toppenish Junior Julian Romero capped a stellar season by winning the 125 pound State Championship at the Class 2A Tournament  in Tacoma.  After finishing third as a freshman and second last year at 119, Romero pinned Hockinson’s Jake Kreglo at 1:10 of the first round to complete the season with a record of 32-3. The title puts Romero in an elite group of 24 Wildcat grapplers to win a state championship. 

Led by regional champions Jose Barrera and Julian Romero, the Toppenish Wildcat’s advanced nine grapplers to the state Tournament in Tacoma this weekend.  112 Lb Barrera (112)  and Romero (125) dominated their weight classes as they ran their season records to 31-5, and 28-3.

As the regular basketball seasons came to a close for the Granger boys and girls basketball teams, they had one last SCAC West league game against who else, but their arch-rival Zillah in Zillah Thursday night, Feb. 11.

The fourth-ranked Toppenish Wildcats are poised to make another strong run at the regional and state wrestling tournaments, after placing seventh last year.

The White Swan Cougars had a very busy week playing three games in six days, all on the road.