Dogs Head To State

DAYTON - If it shoots like a duck and dribbles like a duckhellip;it's a Fighting Duck.

The Dayton Bulldogs will face a team from Toutle Lake at the Hardwood Classic in their first Final 8 game in Spokane on Thursday.

This phase of the playoffs is double elimination. Even if they lose, the Dogs will face at least one more team at the arena on Friday.

The Dayton players are still pinching themselves after putting away Riverside Christian in a convincing, 59-41, victory at Wa Hi Friday night, but head coach Roy Ramirez warns this is no time to rest on their laurels.

Inexperienced at playing in the huge Spokane Arena under bright lights and before big crowds, the Bulldogs will face a whole new level of competition when they step on the court late afternoon to face a 2B team ranked fourth in the state. Dayton is ranked fifth.

"It's going to be a tough game," he said in a telephone interview Tuesday after having a chance to learn more about the high school team from a small Western Washington town near Castle Rock.

The Fighting Ducks don't pose the kind of problem like the lake Roosevelt Raiders posed to the WP Cardinals Friday. They don't have a ginormous player like Ty Egbert to get around. The players aren't even quite as tall as most of the Bulldogs.

But they make up for it with their quick offense, and disciplined and aggressive defense, Ramirez said.

A weapon in the Fighting Ducks' arsenal is their ability to score from the field, a match for the Dogs' own ballistics talents. If Toutle Lake decides to try to shut down top scorer Garett Turner, like the Cardinals did in the Bulldogs' lone defeat of the season, the Ducks still have to worry about the other missile launchers and backboard biters on the Dayton team: Hayden Fullerton, Kroft Sunderland, Joey Schlachter, Wyatt Frame and Colton Bickelhaupt.

But even though Ramirez believes the first matchup calls for tighter passing and ballhandling care on offense, he isn't about to hamstring the Bulldogs' signature maverick style that relies on quickfooted and swift-handed improvisation.

After their 5:30 p.m. game against the Ducks ends Thursday night, the team likely will stick around and watch the playoff game between Lake Roosevelt and Northwest Christian, which has two players of considerable height to give Egbert a run for his slam dunks. If the Dogs go deep into the Hardwood Classic, they may well face that game's winner later in the tournament. But for now, Ramirez and his crew are focused on the task and opposing team at hand.

"We can't think too much about being in the big arena," he said about the space where, unlike the Tacoma Dome before the Gridiron Classic state football tournament, no team is able to practice or set foot until the day of their playoff game.

"There's a job we need to get done," he said.