It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall in the Matt Court locker rooms last weekend at the 5A girls state championships when coaches were trying to figure out how to stop Hermiston senior Courtney Walchli.

Assistant Coach: Well just put a taller post on No. 30 one-on-one. Shes only 5-foot-8.

Head Coach: Her height doesnt matter.  Shell drop-step right around the defender, fake that drop step to create space and float it right over our girl or shell just go under the hoop to a reverse and use the rim to screen the potential block.

Assistant Coach: So lets just get physical with her and push her off the block out to the perimeter.

Head Coach: Her passing will dice us apart if we zone, shell dribble right around our post players and shoot right over us if we give her space or put a smaller defender on her. She almost never takes a low percentage shot.

Assistant Coach: So we bring a double to her when she catches the ball on the post?

Head Coach: They send the open forward to the opposite side of the lane when she gets doubled and she passes block-to-block as well as she does anything, then they have an open layup.

There had to have been plenty of head scratching, and probably eventually some shrugs, because no individual player could stop Walchli. She almost led the Bulldogs to three victories last week in Eugene.

These are the main reasons why the coaches at the tournament honored her with a spot on the all-tournament team. She was a major reason why Hermiston girls basketball has a fourth trophy ready for display at the high school.

Journalists dont vote on all-tournament teams, and I doubt that the result would have been much different if we did. I was campaigning on KOHU throughout the weekend for Walchli to be a first team all-tournament pick, but admittedly I did see all three of her games and I cant say the same for most of the other coaches or media.

Thats what happens when teams play in the breakfast bracket; the spectators are few and far between. Coaches still on the championship side of the bracket arent likely to bring their team to the morning session to watch because they are still preparing for a game later in the day, and would prefer their team sleeps.

Those coaches dont see players in the consolation bracket because they no longer need to scout them for a matchup later in the tournament.

These are all reasons it is much tougher to get recognized on the all-tournament first team if you lose in the quarterfinals. Even if nobody could stop you like was the case for Walchli this year.

Hermiston is by no means a one player team. They dont get there without Maloree Moss running the show and garnering a ton of defensive attention.

The Bulldogs dont beat Wilsonville and Mountain View and come inches and seconds away from topping Willamette too without the defense of Andrea Waters and Gracie Flyg.

They definitely dont get there without the sharp shooting of Saraya Wise (the tournaments leader in the three-point shots made) and Jeni Hoffert (a second-team all-tournament selection who deserves her own column about creating defensive match-up headaches because no other perimeter player in that tournament had the ability to create their own outside shot like Hoffert). Both Wise and Hoffert had the best three-game stretches of their Bulldog careers.

After crediting all of the others, Hermistons fourth place trophy is anchored by Walchli as the teams foundation at that tournament. In the game of what-ifs, I would have liked to have seen Walchli go to work against second-place West Albanys 6-foot-3 junior Samantha Siegner or champion Springfields 6-5 sophomore Mercedes Russell to see if her savvy and skill could have been stopped by either of those two. Both were made unanimous selections on the all-tournament first team.

I mentioned a week ago in my column about tournament memories that Ive seen and broadcasted quite a bit of state championship basketball. I probably wont soon forget either of this years basketball teams and their tremendous conference championship seasons.

But years from now when parts of these seasons start to fade, I expect Walchlis dominate tournament performance will survive my remarkably poor long-term memory and become one of those performances I wont forget.

Erick is the news/sports director at KOHU/KQFM. He is also the play-by-play voice of Hermiston High School athletics. Complain to him at eolson@eotnet.net.