Urban Schools Advance to State as Their Parents Terrorize Suburbanites

There are many things that Franklin's explosive sophomore guard Peyton Siva and Seattlest do not have in common. The ability to change a shot in mid-air. An arsenal of tomahawk dunks. And a mother who shows up at our basketball games in a strapless silk blouse and terrorizes a score of suburbanites.

Franklin and Garfield advanced to state with wins in the district tournament Saturday night. Garfield beat Roosevelt in OT (above is video of the post-game celebration), Franklin held off a fantastic comeback led by Eastlake's Keaton Hayenga, who scored 38 points.

And there was action in the stands, as well, when Siva's mom started shouting at some Eastlake (Sammamish) fans, who, in the biggest display of cowardice this side of John Murtha, immediately started motioning frantically for the Kirkland five-o. The cops wandered over and started grabbing people, they stopped the game, the Franklin coach came up to the stands to try to calm everyone down.

This wasn't even a fight--not a single punch was thrown--but the Eastsiders were shaken. One Eastlake assistant coach, a baby-faced guy in a crappy tie, had this look on his face like he'd just walked out of the Wall Street subway station at 9:03 on September 11th. There's a guy you won't see at the Rainier Avenue McDonalds anytime soon. And Seattleites, next time you cross the 520 bridge, expect a body cavity search.

Eventually, we all followed the advice of the family patriarch, a fired-up Samoan guy who ran about 280, and who gave an impassioned speech to his family: "Let's all just calm down and watch Pay-Pay!"

And why wouldn't you watch him? He's the most exciting basketball player in the city, including college and pros, because he can jump out of the gym. The guy threw down a vicious tomahawk jam over Hayenga, a 6-5 leaper who's headed to Washington State to pitch. Siva finished with 23 points, his backcourt mate Venoy Overton had 31.

Hayenga had 38, until the refs fouled him out on a terrible, terrible call. This was one of the worst officiated games we've ever seen--the refs called 19 fouls in the third quarter (quarters are eight minutes--that's a foul every 25 seconds. It was a miserable thing to watch. Bad for both teams, and bad for the fans. It was so bad, Franklin's coach managed to get a technical for arguing a call made against Eastlake.

Garfield beat Roosevelt earlier in the day, advancing to state. The Bulldogs were lucky to win, they got a couple of very fortuitous bounces in the final seconds, leading to DeAndre Taylor's game-winning three with eight seconds left. Franklin and Garfield play next Friday at Juanita for the district championship, Roosevelt and Eastlake must play their ways in with three wins in the loser bracket. Both play Tuesday at Juanita. See all the district schedules here.