The biggest obstacle Galena, Carson and Hug will have to overcome this week at the NIAA/4A State Championships won't be its first-round opponents. It will trying to change how its first-round opponents think.
"The south comes up here expecting to win. If they don't, they go home as a failure," said Grizzly coach Tom Maurer, whose team plays Durango tonight at 6:35 in at Lawlor Events Center. "It's just a southern pride thing. That would be a degrading thing to say you lost to a team from the north. We need to overcome that."
Winning consistently is the only way to do it. And that simply hasn't happened.
In the past five state tournaments, Northern Nevada teams have only won four games. A Northern Nevada team hasn't won a large school state championship since Carson in 1975. That's a lot of history this year's teams will have to try and reversing.
Carson (18-10) plays Sunrise Region champion Rancho (13-8) today at 3:20. The Senators haven't been in the state tournament since 1996. But the Rams haven't been to the state tournament since 1995, when they lost in the championship game to Durango.
"They're very comparable to a Hug team," Carson coach Bruce Barnes said of Rancho. "They have a bit more size inside than Hug. But I think the guys are real confident. We know we're going to have to play well to win but we feel it's a very winnable game."
Hug (16-10) plays top-ranked Cheyenne at 12:10. The Desert Shields (28-1) cruised to a 76-46 win over Palo Verde in the Sunset Regional Championship last Saturday. Their lone loss this season came against Oak Hill Academy, which was the No. 1 team in the nation at the time. And Oak Hill needed a game ending 12-0 run to win, 74-66.
And with the Grizzlies (15-15) going up against a Trailblazer team that has beaten Bishop Gorman twice this season and only lost to Cheyenne by seven in a game in December, Carson may have the best chance of advancing.
"I think they do but they (Rancho) aren't No. 1 for nothing," Maurer said. "But they came out a of region with Green Valley, who has a kid going to Oregon, and they aren't even here. I just know the south and I wouldn't want to play anybody whose playing really well right now. And it sounds like Rancho is."
This is the time of year that Maurer tries to offer encouragement to the other Northern 4A coaches in the tournament. He emailed Hug coach Brian Voyles on Tuesday and wished him luck. Even though Galena beat Carson 60-55 in last Saturday's Northern 4A championship game, he still contacted Senator assistant Rick Garcia and offered any information he had on Rancho.
"I'm a north guy all the way," Maurer said. "I want to see us do well."
This is also the time of year storybook endings are created.
"If you don't dream, then why show up?" Maurer asked. "We keep saying it would be a nice to be a 'Hoosiers' story. We don't have a lot of talent or size. But if we rebound and play good defense and make them (Durango) hit outside shots, then maybe. If we play that perfect game, maybe it will happen."
The perfect medicine for the Grizzlies will be exactly that. Maurer said five of his 15 players are battling bad bouts of the flu and several didn't practice on Tuesday. Derek Lorenzen, Galena's best scorer, is in that group. Durango (21-11) is coached by Al LaRocque, who has won two state titles with the Trailblazers, who beat Gorman in Sunset Region's 3rd-4th place game to earn the final seed for state.
"If we don't have him, that's 20 points right there I'm going to have to make up for," Maurer said of Lorenzen, a sophomore who scored 21 against Carson last Saturday. "It (the flu) has been going around. Wherever it is, I'm hoping it's on the plane from Vegas. Defense wins championships and we're not changing that motto. I think if we can slow them down, which I don't know is possible, then we might have a chance."
Palo Verde, the Sunset Region's No. 2 seed, plays Valley (13-17) this morning at 9 in the other first round game.
