A tale of two schools as Beach beats Prep

Will:
Seattle Prep's NBA-ready center, Spencer Hawes, spent the game getting fronted by Beach's round mound of rebound, six-foot-five Emeka Iweka. When Iweka's excellent fronting didn't deny Hawes the ball, Beach collapsed on him. Frustrated, Hawes moved away from the basket, and spent the third quarter shooting fall-away jumpers. Our friend posed an obvious question: "When you are 7-feet, and shooting over 6-5 players, why do you need to fall-away?"

Though Hawes is one of the best high school centers in the country, Beach didn't cede the interior to him. They drove to the basket and, with excellent movement and interior passing, scored many points in the paint. 6-5 leaper Tremaine Meneese stole a page out of Brandon Roy's offensive playbook, stationing himself below the backboard to collect offensive rebounds and easy layins.

Cheerleaders:
There's no place to cheer along the sideline at SPU's gym. So the Seattle Prep cheerleaders retreated to a corner of the court, almost out of view of their own fans.

The Rainier Beach cheerleaders simply moved up into the stands, where they led more spontaneous, more fun, and far more contextual cheers.

The fans:
One side of SPU's gym is cushioned chairs with seatbacks. The other side is hard plastic benches. Fittingly, Seattle Prep was on the seatback side. Their student fans fashion themselves after the Cameron Crazies--but as soon as Prep faced adversity, they got quiet and rarely mustered any enthusiasm. Their adult fans were mostly wearing shirts and ties, and concentrated on screaming at the refs.

Beach fans, on the bleacher side, treated the team like family--which they often are. We know this fulfills a common stereotype, but it's a fact: every Rainier Beach game we've ever attended, we've sat near someone claiming to be "a cousin" of one of the players. Never a sister, or a father, or a great-uncle. Always--always--a cousin. And this game was no exception.

In the second half, Beach's Meneese hit the floor hard after a driving lay-in, grabbing his ankle, in obvious pain. There was a momentary hush, until one of the Beach rooters behind us, who apparently was a coach on the football team, offered this opinion: "I wouldn't let him lay on the ground like that during football season. I'd say, 'Get up, get off the field.'" This as a trainer massaged the boy's ankle, causing him to wince noticably. But he continued. "Hey, man," addressing a nearby rooter, "tell your cousin to get up." The man obliged. "Tremaine!" he yelled. "Get off the court!" That's family for you.