Boys Notebook | DeAngelo Casto says Ferris is "where I belong"

TACOMA — DeAngelo Casto says he felt he "didn't belong" at Franklin High School and that is a big reason why he transferred back to Ferris High School in Spokane just before basketball season started.

Casto said the Quakers team and social life wasn't a problem, but "there are a lot of different factors that played in, and it just didn't work out."

Casto, a 6-foot-8 senior, helped Ferris to the state 4A title last year. On Wednesday, he scored 17 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, blocked six shots and made three assists in the 68-39 first-round victory over Garfield.

The triumph, coupled with Franklin's loss to Federal Way, rules out the possibility of a Ferris-Franklin game.

Casto said he had been looking forward to playing Franklin "because I have friends on that team" and he had been exchanging text messages with them.

Casto moved to Seattle to reunite with his adoptive mother, but said he headed back to Spokane. "I knew this was where I belonged," he said, calling his Ferris teammates "my family."

Casto said he is being recruited "really hard" by Washington State but needs to get a passing SAT score.

Casto initially was denied eligibility after transferring back to Ferris but won his appeal. He is living with the family of a volunteer Ferris assistant coach who had a son in the Ferris program.

Raivio rubs it in

Matt Raivio, senior for Mountain View of Vancouver, is the first of three basketball brothers to make it to the state tournament, and he wasn't above rubbing it in a bit.

"I texted both of them," said Matt, referring to sending text messages to his brothers Derek and Nik after the Thunder beat Bothell last Saturday to qualify for state.

Derek, the former Gonzaga University star, is now playing in Germany, and Nik plays for the University of Portland.

Matt scored nine in the Thunder's 67-43 first-round loss to Shadle Park of Spokane.

Notes

• Attendance Wednesday was 11,279, an increase of 2,662 over last year, when bad weather and an accident closed down west-bound lanes of I-90. It's slightly higher than Wednesday attendance in 2006.

• If top-ranked and defending champions Ferris boys and Lewis and Clark girls win tournament championships, this will be guaranteed to be a remarkable high-school sports year for Spokane.

Lewis and Clark won the 4A football title in the fall. Mead won 4A volleyball for a record fifth time and also won the boys cross-country state crown. North Central won 3A cross-country crown.

• One adjustment for all players at the Tacoma Dome is the shooting background at the "open" ends of the two adjacent courts that are separated by a huge curtain. There is no nearby wall, and depth perception can be tricky at first.

"You have to get used to it, because it's a lot different," said Zach Humphrey of Shadle Park, who got zeroed in early and scored 18 of his 24 points in the first half.

• Day 1 oddity: Mountain View didn't shoot a single free throw in the loss to Shadle Park.

• Washington Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar was spotted at the tournament.

• Federal Way sophomore Cole Dickerson is the half-brother of Michael Dickerson, the former Federal Way and University of Arizona star. Michael was on the 1997 NCAA champion Arizona team. He was a first-round draft choice of Houston in 1998. His last NBA appearance was in the 2002-03 season with Memphis.

• Federal Way junior Andre Barrington, 6 feet 1, 198 pounds, is a running back who is receiving recruiting attention from Washington and Oregon.

• After a poor showing at district last year, the Narrows League didn't have a single team in the tournament. This year the league has three representatives — Foss, Lincoln and Bellarmine Prep, all of Tacoma.

• Only three schools have both boys and girls teams in the 4A tournaments — Bellarmine Prep, Snohomish and Prairie of suburban Vancouver.