Time to vote on the WIAA’s new state basketball tournament plans

Don’t like the way the state high school basketball tournaments have been run the last few years?

Well you can do some thing about it.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is looking for feedback on state basketball tournaments.

To take part, you must load the WIAA app. More details at wiaa.com.

But the organization basically has presented three state tourney options for the coming school year.

If you’re interested in taking part in the survey, it only goes through the end of the day on Wednesday, May 20. But remember, to take part, you’ll have to upload the WIAA app.

Here they are:

Option 1 – Seeding committees would rank the postseason qualifiers from 1-16 or 1-20 (depending on the size of the classification). For this explanation, we’ll use 16 teams.

In the first round, 1 would play 16, 2 would play 15, etc., in single-elimination games at high schools or colleges closest to the higher seed.

Round 2 In the second week would have the remaining eight teams playing each other (1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc.) at various sites.

Finally, week 3 would be the semifinals and finals. The bigger schools (Class 4A, 3A and 2A) would play in the Tacoma Dome.

The smaller schools (1A, 2B, 1B) would be played in either the Yakima Valley SunDome, or the Spokane Arena. All semifinals would be on that Friday; and all finals would be held Saturday.

Option 2 – The big difference here is after the first round at various sites, both high school and colleges, everyone would come to Yakima for the second weekend for what’s called Super Regionals.

Using two courts in the SunDome, the 1B and 2B boys and girls quarterfinals games would be played on a Thursday.

The 1A and 2A boys and girls games would be on a Friday, and the 3A and 4A boys and girls teams meet in the quarterfinals on a Saturday.

The third weekend would be semifinals (Friday) and finals (Saturday), with the 4A, 3A and 2A games in the Tacoma Dome; and the 1A, 2B and 1B games played either in Yakima or the Spokane Arena.

Option 3, or the Yakima option for Rounds 1 and 2 - It would all start Feb. 22 and 23 with all Class 1B boys and girls teams playing in the Yakima SunDome.

The difference is teams would get two games, with two losses meaning no state trophy. A win-loss or loss-win would allow four teams to garner the fifth through eighth places in the tournament.

Meanwhile the four teams in each portion of the tournament going win-win those first two days would advance to the state semifinals the following weekend.

Feb. 24 and 25 would have the 2B teams in Yakima following the same format; while Feb. 26 and 27 would have the 1A teams doing the same.

All semifinals For 1B, 2B and 1A would then move to the Spokane Arena on March 5, with just the finals being played the next day, March 6.

Meanwhile, the top 2A boys and girls teams would come into Yakima on March 1 and 2.

The top 3A teams would play in the SunDome on March 3-4, while the 4A’s best come in on March 5-6.

The top four teams in each tournament would move on to the Tacoma Dome on Friday, March 12, for the semifinals. The finals would be Saturday, March 13.

Parrish wins major WIAA scholarship

Grandview’s Rocco Parrish was named the male recipient of the WIAA’s Smart Choice Scholarship last week, earning him a $5,000 scholarship to the school of his choice.

Parrish’s accomplishments in athletics included qualifying for the Class 2A state golf tournament as a freshman, sophomore and junior. He was as a CWAC all-conference golfer during his sophomore and junior season, and was named CWAC boys basketball all-conference as a junior. The Grandview senior holds the school record for all-time passing yardage for the Greyhounds..

While he was captain for both the football and basketball teams at Grandview, his leadership has stretched outside of sports.

He has served as a member of the high school’s leadership class, the CWAC Sportsmanship Forum and the WIAA LEAP Committee.

Parrish has spent time volunteering for high school and community events and even initiated the Hometown Showdown — a weeklong competition dedicated to raising money for blood cancer awareness.

Parrish has not locked in on a school yet, but wherever he goes he wants to play college golf.

Fife’s Zoie Breland won the $5,000 scholarship for the girls.

Dawson Neely of DeSales was one of five finalists for the boys scholarship, and he took home a $1,000 scholarship.

Letters of intent

For the past few months, I’ve reported a number of our region’s athletes signing letters of intent to play at the next level, whether it be a community college or four-year school.

I stumbled on the Cascade Collegiate Conference’s list yesterday, and there are plenty of Mid-Columbia residents headed all over the Northwest this fall:

• Patty Burres (Umatilla) will run cross country and track for Eastern Oregon University.

• Geraldin Correa (Kennewick) is headed to Lewis-Clark State College, where she’ll run cross country and track.

• Fernando Delgado (Warden) will be attending Northwest University this fall to play men’s basketball.

• Izak Garza (Grandview) will be running cross country and track for Multnomah University.

• Dylan Grogan (Stanfield), after two seasons at Blue Mountain Community College, will play baseball at Oregon Institute of Technology.

• Like Grogan, Carsten Manderbach (Hanford) is also leaving BMCC, but he’s headed to Eastern Oregon University for baseball.

• Elliott Marks (Walla Walla CC) is headed to Eastern Oregon University for baseball.

• Donovan McReynolds (Kennewick) is going to run cross country and track for Multnomah University.

• Rafael Orozco (Stanfield) has signed to run cross country and track for Warner Pacific University.

• Lukas Tolan (Hermiston/WWCC) has signed a letter to play baseball for Eastern Oregon.

• Jasmine Urban (Hanford) will be running cross country and track for Bushnell University.