3A Boys Championship | Franklin dashes past Columbia River to title

TACOMA — Seven Franklin players locked arms, watching and waiting as the last 60 seconds ticked away.

"I was so emotional," Franklin senior Freddy Wilson said. "I was trying to be happy, but it's so sad it's your last high-school game."

The final buzzer was like a starting gun, and the Franklin Quakers sprinted onto the center of the Tacoma Dome court, piling on until they were one huge tumbleweed of joy.

"No words can explain it," said senior Peyton Siva, the tournament MVP. "The last seconds of my Franklin career, I'm going to remember them forever."

On Saturday night, the top-ranked Quakers were too fast, too athletic and too physical for Columbia River, which joined a not-so-exclusive club of teams completely overmatched by Franklin. After one assertive first-quarter run, the Quakers ran away with a 51-34 victory in the Class 3A state championship game.

"This," coach Jason Kerr said, "is what you work for."

For Franklin (28-1), this state championship came against the team that represented its greatest weakness: size. The Quakers were the Lilliputians, looking up at Columbia River's Gulliver, 6-foot-10 center Steven Bjornstad. They were seven Davids, all 6 feet 3 or shorter, focused on one Goliath.

Yet as small as they may have been in stature, no one loomed larger in the state than top-ranked Franklin. The Quakers — whose only loss came on a last-second shot at Bainbridge — won every state-tournament game by at least 17 points.

"The better team won, there's no question about that," Columbia River coach David Long said. "We would have had to play the perfect game to beat them. The perfect game. And I still don't know if that'd be enough."

What made this championship season, the sixth in Franklin's history, even more remarkable was that Franklin won without one tall post player. Not one Franklin player was listed in the tournament program as a forward, and in Bjornstad, the Nevada-bound big man, the Quakers faced the most intimidating challenge of the season.

This was the Franklin plan: get the ball before Bjornstad could. The Quakers, led by sneaky 5-10 guard Vionte Reid, harassed Columbia River's guards and forced 10 first-quarter turnovers, fueling a 21-0 run that put the game out of reach almost before it had started. Bjornstad scored only six of his 20 points in the first half, on just three first-half shots.

"We've been playing against guys like that all year, and we have great help defense," Wilson said.

The Quakers flashed their balance, too. Siva averaged only 11 points but led the tournament in assists and steals per game. Guard Vonchae Richardson joined him on the all-tournament first team, and forward Chris Holmes made the second team.

"What I find amazing is the way they share that basketball," Long said. "There's not a selfish kid out there."

Franklin won without one of its starting seniors, Jesse Hopson, whose ankle injury in their semifinal victory against Meadowdale cut its eight-man rotation to seven. But after the way their season began, Franklin had already just about seen it all.

In the course of the season's first four weeks, all of these maladies had sidelined players in Franklin's eight-man rotation out of games: a broken foot, a viral infection, two sprained ankles and even the chickenpox.

"There was zero conversation about what we were going to do to replace [Hopson]," said Kerr, who won his third state championship in 10 years at Franklin. "We've been so used to that all season long, with all the injuries and sickness."

Franklin's season wasn't all victories and celebrations. Before it even began, senior Sterling Carter — who is heading to Division I University of the Pacific — tore his anterior cruciate ligament. Then there was the holiday tournament game in Kentucky that Franklin played without six seniors and Kerr, whose flight in Las Vegas had been delayed (the Quakers won the game and the tournament). And then there was the near-fatal shooting of Donnie Cheatham, Siva and Holmes' teammate on the 2006 championship team. Cheatham spoke to the team before the game.

"Donnie Cheatham, that was our inspiration," Siva said.

More than 20 minutes after the game ended, after Siva had hugged his mother, shared a moment with Kerr and hung one of the nets over his neck, he didn't want to leave the court.

"Yeah, it's hard," Siva said. "It's hard to leave this team."

Tom Wyrwich: 206-515-5653 or twyrwich@seattletimes.com

FRANKLIN — Anrio Adams 0-0 0-2 0, Jestoni Orcejola 0-2 0-0 0, Peyton Siva 4-7 1-2 10, Vionte Reid 2-4 2-2 7, Chris Holmes 4-8 0-0 8, Leon Nelson 0-1 0-0 0, Domonique Wilson 3-6 1-2 7, Vonchae Richardson 2-8 2-2 7, Freddy Wilson 5-6 1-3 12, Juwvan Buchannan 0-0 0-0 0, Roger Garrett 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 20-43 7-13 51.

COLUMBIA RIVER — Kramer Ramberg 0-4 0-0 0, Kyle Thurston 1-2 0-0 3, Zack Bjork 1-4 1-6 3, John Harris 0-0 0-0 0, Kevin Pickett 0-0 0-0 0, Neil Daly 0-1 0-2 0, Connar Oberst 0-1 0-0 0, Brandon Scheidel 0-0 1-2 1, Gunnar Wahl 0-0 0-0 0, Kyle Legato 3-3 1-2 7, Steven Bjornstad 7-9, 6-9 20, Will Stecher 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 12-24 9-21 34.

Franklin	23	12	12	4	—	51
Columbia River	6	6	11	11	—	34

Three-point shooting — Franklin 4-12 (Siva 1-3, Reid 1-3, Richardson 1-4, Wilson 1-1), Columbia River 1-7 (Thurston 1-2). Rebounds — Franklin 24 (Holmes 6), Columbia River 29 (Bjornstad 7). Assists — Franklin 11 (Wilson 5), Columbia River 6 (Oberst 2). Steals — Franklin 15 (Siva 4, Holmes 4), Columbia River 3. Blocked shots — Franklin 0, Columbia River 1 (Stecher). Fouled out — none.