It matters.
It matters to Skyla Reyes, who endured her own personal 98-game losing streak the past two school years.
It matters to Mar’Shay Moore, a sophomore sharpshooter who never lost hope.
It matters to the ten or so students who proudly wore their school colors the other night and had to root for their rivals just for another opportunity to cheer their classmates.
It matters to the Fort Vancouver Trappers.
The end of the girls basketball season seemed like it was going to end just like last year for the Trappers. They were 0-18 overall after going 0-20 in the 2009-10 season.
Then it happened. The suffering ended. A victory.
That led to one more win, and — gulp! — a three-way tie for fifth place in the seven-team Class 3A Greater St. Helens League.
Interestingly enough, five teams make the playoffs. There had to be a tiebreaker. Yes, a tiebreaker for fifth place between three teams. One survivor. And there would be no guarantee that the survivor would last past one game in the district tournament.
So why bother? Because it matters. Reyes, God bless her, played varsity soccer, basketball, and softball last year for the Trappers — 0-20, 0-20, and 0-20. Then she went oh-fer again her senior year of soccer. That was followed by the 0-18 start in basketball. She kept working, and she got that winning feeling last week when the basketball team got its first win.
“Oh my gosh, it was so mind-blowing,” Reyes said. “I was waiting to wake up from a dream. We were all so happy. We wanted that moment to last forever.”
We, she said. And she meant it. After all, her teammates were the ones who kept her going to practice every day, who motivated her.
“It’s really just a passion. I just love playing sports,” Reyes said. “And I love playing with the girls. No matter how bad we’ve done, every girl out there just gave a full effort. That really drove me. I saw how much they wanted it, and that made me want to get better.”
Winning is contagious, too.
Moore said once the Trappers got that first victory, they carried over that momentum into the last regular-season game. Fort needed a win to force a three-way tie. Moore scored 40 to lead the Trappers over rival Hudson’s Bay. Yeah, 40.
“I was so happy. I didn’t know I scored that many points,” Moore said.
Moore never thought of giving in, even after the losses piled up. It might have been easier to just let the year go by, another 0-20 season, and start again next year. But that would not be fair to the seniors, she said.
“When we lose, we didn’t always lose by a lot,” Moore said. “We felt just because we lost didn’t mean we couldn’t win the next game.”
So they kept working at it, much to the delight of their coach, Mike Dillman.
“They’re a pretty amazingly resilient group,” Dillman said. “This team’s been easy to coach. They hadn’t won in a long time, but they showed up to practice every day and they had a great attitude. There’s never been any excuses made. We kept telling them it’s going to pay off.”
With the three-way tie came a round-robin tiebreaker Monday between Fort Vancouver, Hudson’s Bay and Columbia River. The Trappers lost the first “game” — consisting of two quarters or one half of a normal game — to River by two points, meaning they needed River to lose that second game in order to have a chance to tie again.
“I never thought I’d be sitting here rooting for Hudson’s Bay,” Reyes remembered thinking.
Sure enough, Bay got past River, setting up a third game — Bay vs. Fort. The Trappers not only needed a win, but they had to win by three or more points to win the next tiebreaker after the round-robin — point differential.
The players got a huge lift from their student section, a small, but loud group of 10, wearing red, wearing hats, waving foam fingers.
“We support out team until the end,” Nathan Chen screamed.
No doubt. They waited there, even after Fort lost the first game. They stayed, just hoping Bay would beat River, to give the Trappers one more game to play. They were rewarded.
“We love our ladies, and we love our sports,” senior Yarenni Mendoza said. “We all have tests tomorrow, but we’ll have plenty more tests in high school.”
“But this might be our last game to attend,” added junior Emily Ward.
Fort, behind those spirited fans, beat Bay by six. Not only did the Trappers break a long losing streak, not only did they get out of sole possession of last place, but they also made it to the district tournament.
Fort’s magical run ended Tuesday night with a 49-31 loss to Kelso in the opening round of the district tournament.
But don’t try to convince the Trappers that fifth place does not matter. This past week meant to the world to a lot of people associated with Fort Vancouver basketball.
Paul Valencia covers high school sports for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4557 or e-mail at paul.valencia@columbian.com.
