SportsMarch 6, 2014

Well-rounded team from Cottonwood will be an imposing challenge for any foe it meets at State

TROY WARZOCHA of the Tribune
Prairie’s Jake Bruner drives around Lapwai’s O’Shae Perez during the 1A Division I District II tournament championship game. Bruner was injured at the start of this season, but the Pirates from Cottonwood hardly missed a beat during his absence or afterward.
Prairie’s Jake Bruner drives around Lapwai’s O’Shae Perez during the 1A Division I District II tournament championship game. Bruner was injured at the start of this season, but the Pirates from Cottonwood hardly missed a beat during his absence or afterward.Tribune/Steve Hanks

COTTONWOOD - It wasn't a hard-hitting or a probing question, but it was one that left several members of the Prairie High boys' basketball team scrambling.

Point guard Jared Higgins took a lengthy pause before delivering a wry smile.

Forward Jake Bruner did his best to give a sincere answer while fellow forward Lucas Arnzen gave a what-Jake-said look and shrugged his shoulders.

Coach Teel Bruner responded with a laugh.

"You want me to reveal all of our secrets, don't you?" the coach joked.

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How would the Prairie Pirates, a team that went 21-1 this season and was undefeated in league play, beat the Prairie Pirates?

Although the replies weren't necessarily blueprints, they were all remarkably similar in both tone and content.

"Well, checking our bigs out because we all crash the boards hard and we're all really tall," Higgins said. "Also, you'd have to put pressure on the ball and make it difficult to get down the court."

"You'd definitely have to box out down on the defensive end because our bigs really go for offensive rebounds hard," Jake Bruner said. "We like transition a lot so you'd have to stop them in the backcourt and make sure to get the ball stopped."

"Pretty much what Jake said," Arnzen said. "Boxing out is the main thing. Stop the dribble. Stop the drive."

"I think you'd have to try to keep us off the boards," Teel Bruner said. "We try to pride ourselves on going to the offensive and defensive glass."

Winners of a state title as recently as two years ago, the Glenns Ferry Pilots are going to see first-hand what that Pirate pride looks like when they tangle with Prairie at 12:15 p.m. PST today at Vallivue High in Caldwell in the opening round of the Idaho Class 1A Division I state tournament.

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Led by the frontline of Arnzen, Jake Bruner and Tanner Ross, it's easy to see why Prairie has made a concerted effort to dominate the glass as often as possible.

All three stand a minimum of 6-foot-4, can shoot from long range and run the floor better than many guards at the 1A Division I level.

Oh yeah, they don't mind getting their hands dirty in the paint either.

"It makes it a lot easier," Higgins said. "If I need to get rid of the ball, I can get it to them and they can score."

Coming into this season, Arnzen and Jake Bruner were both known commodities while Ross appeared to be more of an X factor.

However, it didn't take long for Ross to become a regular contributor as his emergence helped keep Prairie unbeaten while the team waited for Bruner to return from a collarbone injury sustained during the football season.

The break marked the second year in a row that Bruner, a sophomore, had absorbed an injury to his clavicle.

The first break happened during the 2012-13 basketball season and dealt Prairie a tough blow in a year that ended with a loser-out 46-45 loss to Clearwater Valley in the district tournament.

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In that game, Bruner attempted to play while wearing special shoulder pads, but didn't last long and finished with zero points.

This time, the Pirates - with Arnzen and Ross one year wiser - were much better suited to deal with Bruner's absence.

"I had big aspirations for this year, but Jake, in our last football game last season, broke it again and it got me thinking about the games he didn't play and we still won all of them - and with him coming back, we only got better from there," point guard Rhett Schlader said.

After Prairie opened the season 5-0 - with three of those wins coming over 2A defending champion Grangeville, 1A Division II defending champion Salmon River and the always-talented Wildcats of Lapwai - Bruner returned and tallied eight points, 17 points and 16 points in wins over Kamiah, Grangeville and Nezperce.

"They're all very tall," Schlader said of the trio. "I don't really know how opponents would guard all of them. Before this season, I was thinking that they would cause matchup issues. Whichever one has the smallest guy on him, we feed it to him down low and see if they can score.

"They also do a very good job of rebounding my shots."

Hardly a forgotten man, Arnzen, a junior, is listed as the shortest of the three at 6-4, but boasts a chiseled frame that belies his youth.

And although it would seem like a no-brainer to pack the paint, doing so would only invite Schlader, Higgins, Tyler Hankerson and Dylon Bruegeman to fire away from outside.

"It's a great luxury to have the guys we have this year," Teel Bruner said. "We don't have a system where we try to focus on one guy.

"I think they play very well together. I really truly don't think they care who has the points as long as Prairie has the most at the end of the game."

Higgins, who chooses to operate more as a facilitator, has the ability to put up numbers while Schlader and Hankerson are natural scorers who can both slash to the rim and make it rain from long range.

"Jared, he looks to share the ball first and let us score, which is nice," Jake Bruner said. "And Rhett can score from anywhere."

Schlader, who has been starting for the Pirates since midway through his freshman year, was at Nampa's Idaho Center two years ago, but it was to collect an academic award just minutes before Lapwai and Glenns Ferry tipped off for the state title.

"I think (being in the state tournament) means the world to Rhett," Teel Bruner said. "He was a manager for us when we had that stretch when we went three years in a row and he experienced it from that angle, but I think these kids have been watching and waiting for their chance.

"Now, Rhett's got it. He plays his butt off. He just plays so hard. His big brother got to go down and play in it and now he gets to do it. I think he'll be ready. I think he'll have a pretty special tournament."

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Elected to the Division III college football Hall of Fame in 1999 from his days as a safety for Centre College in Danville, Ky., and armed with an amiable southern drawl that makes you feel like family, Prairie coach Teel Bruner isn't the type to mince words.

With one state title from 2010 already in his pocket, a 21-1 record this season and the possibility that Prairie could clinch a girls'/boys' double championship in the same year for the second time in school history, Bruner's stance on this year is crystal clear.

"I just want the kids to go down there and play hard and play the way we can play," Bruner said. "We haven't sugarcoated this thing the whole year - if we don't get to where we want to be, we'll be disappointed.

"Maybe that's pressure, but that's what it's about. We'll be disappointed, and we know it's not going to be easy. ... We took our lumps two years ago and took some last year and we've made this program about competing for championships, that's it. We make no bones that we want to go down there and try to be the best team there."

Ready to dive head-first into a three-day interrogation that is entirely within their control, the Pirates know that there is only one correct answer.

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Warzocha may be contacted at twarzocha@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2260. Follow him on Twitter @lmtribTroyW.

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