The Hockinson girls basketball team was planning on spending part of its winter break in the desert.
Instead, the Hawks are heading to the Oregon Coast. Maybe.
The Hockinson girls, along with the Prairie and Columbia River girls basketball teams, were scheduled to play in the Cactus Jam basketball tournaments this week in Phoenix. But all three teams got caught up in massive airline cancelations sparked by winter weather late last week.
“Anyone who didn’t fly out Christmas Day was out of luck,” Columbia River coach Jesse Norris said.
The Skyview and King’s Way Christian boys basketball teams got lucky. Both teams made it Arizona for their games in the Cactus Jam.
“We flew American Airlines,” Skyview coach Matt Gruhler said. “They seemed to be running OK. We had an hour delay, but made it safely.”
The Storm and Knights were slated to play in separate brackets of the Cactus Jam. But on Tuesday, they found themselves on the same side of the same bracket as tournament organizers scrambled to adjust their tournament schedule to adjust for teams that could not make to Arizona.
“The tournament director said it was unprecedented the amount of teams that couldn’t make it due to Alaska Airlines canceling multiple days of flights,” Hockinson coach Damon Roche said.
If both teams had won – or lost – on Tuesday, they would have met at the Cactus Jam on Wednesday. That would have been odd for two schools that are six miles apart to travel more than 1,000 miles to play each other for the second time in three weeks.
However, Skyview won and King’s Way Christian lost, sending the Storm and Knights into different sides of the bracket.
As for the Hockinson, Columbia River and Prairie girls, their coaches were scrambling to find replacement games closer to home.
Roche was working to set up a game at Astoria, Ore., on Tuesday night. The Hawks are also hoping to play Seaside on Thursday if officials can be found to work the game.
Prairie will host King’s of Seattle on Thursday. King’s was also slated to play in the Cactus Jam.
And Columbia River and Prairie will play on Friday. Norris said he was looking to find to more games to replace the games lost from the canceled Cactus Jam trip.
“Prairie and us would play each other too,” Roche said. “But we play each other next Wednesday (Jan. 4).”
