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It was tough ending for runner-up Crater By GREG STILES Close, real close. Tantalizingly close. The Crater Comets were within a couple of shots, perhaps a defensive stop or two and maybe a few free throws from winning a state championship Saturday. And then when it was over, it was still too close. Watching the Westview Wildcats celebrate a few feet away only reminded the Comets of the fine line between the ultimate prize and waiting for next year. While Westview players piled up in the middle of the Chiles Center during their victory celebration, the Comets watched and contemplated. Juniors Jody McLeod, Janell Sapienza and Skye Hemphill -- who were on hand when the Comets finished six points shy of Oregon City in the 1998 title game -- were able to put their thoughts in words more easily than some of their teammates. Some Comets fought back tears, others didn't even bother trying. "You're not in your comfort zone when you're standing out there being the graceful loser," Crater coach David Heard said Monday. "That's the hardest part about losing a championship. Normally when you lose, you go into the locker room and you're with family. After the championship, when you lose, you stand out there in front of TV, God and everybody. "That's hard for anybody. I don't think people understand, unless you're in a 15-year-old's shoes, and most won't ever be in those shoes." Crater, which finished 24-4, won the Southern Oregon Conference title for the fourth time in five years and became just the second SOC team to gain the Class 4A state tournament finals by beating Tigard, No. 9 Wilson and No. 3 Beaverton. "There's a little bit of a sense of disappointment we didn't win," Heard says. "Sometimes when you get that far, you don't realize the accomplishment of it for a week or so." The present bracketing is based on each district's performance in the postseason the previous five years. Heading into this season, the Metro, Three Rivers and Midwestern leagues held down the top three spots, followed by the SOC. That meant the SOC champion was on a collision course with the Metro winner in the semifinals. "Always in the back of my mind, I really felt good about the bracket and making the semifinals," Heard says "And then at that point, I was unsure about Beaverton. I hadn't seen them play, but I was concerned because they had beaten Westview twice and I had seen Westview. But once I had seen them play, I felt we could play with them." Now the Comets, who had no seniors on the roster, have a year to prepare for a possible rematch with the Wildcats, who return their key ingredients, including the Braxton twins, Kara and Kim. What Heard wants to avoid is his players thinking that the only thing that matters is playing for the state championship next year. "What I told the girls --and parents -- is that next year we don't want to set our goals so high that we don't enjoy the first four months," Heard says. "Otherwise we'll be waiting until March 5 to evaluate ourselves on one game." Few teams make it to the Chiles Center year in and year out. Oregon City leads the current list at 15 straight. Crescent Valley is next with eight and Westview is No. 3 on the list at four. It wasn't that long ago that reaching the tournament was a high-end goal for schools like Crater. "I was really excited when we got that seventh-place trophy three years ago," Heard says. "Five years ago, it was an accomplishment to get there. "Sometimes, people don't think about all those things and will only be excited if you get to a certain point. It will be hard to get back to (the championship) game. It takes a lot of things going right besides being good." Among the many things Crater has going for it is a junior varsity that was 20-2. But with no seniors graduating, there won't necessarily be a lot of playing time available. "There will be pressure from the younger people," Heard says. "Hopefully that will raise the level of play all the way through the program." Heard says the Comets will play a heavy summer schedule, including tournaments in Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego in a 16-day span during July. But for now, the Comets can take some time to enjoy their season of success. TV TIMEOUTS -- Heard made good use of the extra timeouts and the extra 100 seconds during quarter breaks afforded by Fox Northwest's cablecast of the title game. "Every four minutes, we could get regrouped mentally," Heard says. "We were making so many passes before getting into our offense to shorten up the game that sometimes (our players) got bored and forgot to screen. The television timeouts gave us the opportunity to get them to refocus. "You don't have to hurry through timeouts and the players could relax more. I think it helped." MATCH LIMITS EXCEEDED -- Crater High won't lose it's state championship wrestling trophy, but the Comets have forfeited their hard-fought 27-24 dual meet victory at Eagle Point. Two Crater wrestlers exceeded the 35-match individual limitation when they accepted forfeits at the Clovis West Shootout at Fresno, Calif. in December. "Throughout the meet, we received a number of forfeits which were counted as matches for the dual-meet scores," Crater athletic director Dan Speasl said in a release. "The rule book states that to receive a forfeit, a wrestler must report to the mat prepared to wrestle and have their hand raised to receive points. This was not done at this tournament so we did not count the forfeits as matches. The tournament team scores reflect the forfeits as being counted." By rule, a team has 48 hours to decline the forfeit in order to not count the match against a wrestler's limitation. Crater failed to decline the points in the specified time. However, neither wrestler actually competed in more than 35 bouts. Speasl says the infraction has been forwarded to the Oregon School Activities Association, which will likely take action on the matter at its May 8 executive board meeting. The Comets won their third consecutive state championship on Feb. 26 and are ranked No. 25 nationally. Crater took only a varsity lineup to the tournament. Speasl says the Comets will likely take extra grapplers on the trip to absorb such forfeits in the future. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA