At long last, Siletz Valley returns to state tournament

The Siletz Valley Warriors haven’t played in the boys state basketball tournament since Gerald Ford was president.

They have quite the compelling excuse, though, for the 36-year drought that ended this afternoon when the Warriors ran onto the court at Baker High School.

For 24 of those years Siletz Valley didn’t have a basketball team.

Didn’t even have a high school, come to that.

Which makes it sort of difficult to put together a squad.

Today’s game, pitting Siletz Valley against Damascus Christian in a quarterfinal at the Class 1A state tournament, is a milestone not only for the team and school, but for the town of Siletz, Coach David Morgan said.

“It’s been a real fun ride,” he said Monday in a telephone interview from the school in Siletz, a town of 1,200 near the Coast, about 14 miles northeast of Newport.

“The whole community is behind us. They’re loud and they get behind our guys.”

Dakota Burgins, a senior on the Warriors roster, has noticed.

“I remember when we first started playing we never really had anybody come to our away games,” Burgins said. “Now we’re seeing half the stands filled up with our crowd. Sometimes they’re louder than the home fans.”

Warriors fans have ample reason to be excited.

Siletz Valley High School closed in 1983 when the Lincoln County School District consolidated, said Bob Line, principal and athletic director.

Before the closure, the Warriors had twice advanced to the Class A (now 2A) state tournament in Pendleton, finishing 3rd in 1972 and advancing to the semifinals in 1975.

Stuart Whitehead, who graduated from Siletz Valley in 1976, remembers watching the 1972 tournament.

“With this year’s team making it to state, it’s bringing back a lot of memories,” Whitehead said. “A lot of alumni (who like him graduated before 1983) are going to games and showing a lot of support.”

Siletz Valley High School re-opened in 2006 as a public charter school, Line said. Its official name is Siletz Valley Early College Academy.

School officials wanted to offer students a full slate of athletics, but the financial situation was not promising.

With just about 50 students enrolled that first year, Siletz Valley, which like all public schools relies heavily on state dollars that are doled out on a per pupil basis, was not flush with cash.

Besides which, as a charter school Siletz Valley has to send 20 percent of its state dollars to the Lincoln County School District, Line said.

The school’s savior is the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, whose reservation is about half a mile from the high school.

The Tribe offered to donate $240,000 per year — half to Siletz Valley High School, half to the town’s K-8 school that re-opened in 2002.

“The Tribe’s generous donation to the schools helps us to offer sports, among other things, Line said.

About 60 percent of the students are tribal members, he said.

So in 2006-07 the Warriors returned to the basketball court.

But the challenge for Morgan, who has coached the Siletz Valley boys team since the school re-opened, was rather more daunting than merely “building a program from scratch,” as he puts it.

Because Siletz Valley is a charter school, local students have the option of attending high school at Toledo, seven miles away, or at Newport.

Both schools have much larger enrollments than Siletz Valley’s 76 — Toledo has about 250 students and competes at the Class 3A level, and Newport, with 560 students, is a Class 4A school (the same as Baker).

The bottom line, Morgan said, is that he has to, in effect, recruit locally, and try to convince Siletz kids to stay home to play basketball in smaller gyms against smaller schools.

That first year, 2006-07, not many did.

And no seniors.

“I still remember our first practice — I had to explain how to do a left-handed layin,” Morgan said. “We had kids who had never played.”

The Warriors went 6-21 that year.

But each year since, the win total has grown.

That success, Morgan said, has bred not only confidence, but also pride.

“We have a totally different mindset now,” he said. “Siletz basketball means something, and wearing that Warrior on your chest means something. You’re representing an entire community.”

And the players relish that role, Burgins said.

“It’s been a really good year,” he said. “We know that the town is really happy that we’ve made it this far.”

This year Siletz Valley is ranked No. 8 in the state, with a record of 19-5.

Two of those losses came against bigger schools — Class 2A Knappa, with an enrollment of 144, and Class 3A Dayton, enrollment 315.

The three other defeats were all to the same team: McKenzie, which like Siletz Valley competes in the Mountain West League.

McKenzie has won all 26 of its games and is ranked No. 1.

Due to a late change to the state tournament bracket, Siletz Valley will play McKenzie in the semifinals Friday afternoon if both teams win today (McKenzie played Elkton in the opening game of the tournament this afternoon).

Morgan said the Warriors, despite their 0-3 record against McKenzie this season, have reason to be confident should they get a fourth try against the Eagles.

In the last of the three games, a Feb. 19 playoff on a neutral court at Harrisburg, McKenzie prevailed by a single point, 51-50.

And Siletz Valley led most of the game, Morgan said.

The Warriors certainly have the experience they lacked when the team was revived five years ago.

All five of Siletz Valley’s starters are seniors.

That quintet includes a pair of first-team all-league players, point guard Jake Carr and inside force Erick Rice.

“We like to get up and down the court in  a hurry; we’re fun to watch,” Morgan said. “We’re excited to see how far we can take this thing.”

But even if the Warriors win the state championship Saturday at BHS, the challenges will remain for Morgan.

Six of his 13 players are seniors.

And several of this year’s juniors opted for Toledo or Newport.

“We still have to compete for kids,” Morgan said.

That campaign to encourage students to attend Siletz Valley is important not only for the basketball team, but for the school as a whole, said Line, the principal.

More students means more money from the state.

Siletz Valley’s enrollment has grown slowly, but steadily, since the school re-opened, a trend that Line attributes in part to the incremental improvements in the school’s athletic prowess.

“Having success at athletics helps keep kids here in Siletz,” he said. “Without athletics our school probably wouldn’t have a high enough enrollment to stay open.”

Perhaps the most palpable aspect of the basketball team’s historic season, Line said, is the pride Siletz residents have shown.

“For so long they didn’t have that — they couldn’t go out and root for the Warriors,” he said. “But now we’re building that back up.”

Whitehead, who still remembers how excited Siletz residents were when the Warriors competed at the state tournament in Pendleton in the 1970s, agrees with Line.

“It wasn’t the same when kids had to go to Toledo,” Whitehead said. “For the kids there’s a lot more ownership now.

“It’s just a pretty big thing for a small place like this.”