SunDome Dekker carries Leopards to title game

YAKIMA – At the final buzzer of Friday’s Class 1A state semifinal against SCAC rival Royal, Zillah senior Dekker Van De Graaf pulled at his jersey to emphasize the ZILLAH across the chest.

If you ask Leopard coach Mario Mengarelli, he could’ve been tugging at one letter.

“Dekker is a different player in this building,” Mengarelli said. “We don’t put pressure on him, but we know Superman is going to come out.”

As a sophomore, Van De Graaf swooped in to rebound his own miss and bank a putback to sink Annie Wright and give Zillah its third championship in eight years.

Last year, it was 36 points – fueled by a 6-for-7 effort from 3-point land – and 12 rebounds to lead the Leopards to a victory over the Knights for third place in the tournament.

And Friday, with just two more games left in his stellar Zillah career, he again owned the moment.

Van De Graaf scored 34 points on 12 of 22 shooting, pulled down 12 rebounds and guided the top-seeded and unbeaten Leopards to the cusp of a fourth title in Mengarelli’s 10th year with a 74-64 over No. 3 Royal.

He’ll cap his career Saturday night at 7 when Zillah (26-0) meets No. 2 Lynden Christian (25-1) in the Yakima Valley SunDome.

“Win or lose, I’m just happy to be here with my guys,” Van De Graaf said. “I think it’s more about the journey than the end result, but it’s great to be there.”

This season hasn’t been one of dominance for the program’s all-time leading scorer. He missed four games with an ankle injury, his scoring average has dipped, and his two-year hold on the SCAC MVP was broken by Royal junior Grant Wardenaar.

Rather than personal goals, though, this year he's focused on doing what he's called upon to do.

“My sophomore year, I had guys who would keep me in check, guys that I looked up to, guys that would discipline me if I was doing stuff,” he said. “Now, I’m that guy who has to be that leader, when I leave the program, I have to leave an imprint.”

His growth is quite evident to Mengarelli.

“The teammate he is now, he does whatever we need as a team,” he said. “For him to be aggressive tonight was what we needed.”

He delivered.

He helped stake the Leopards to an eight-point lead at the intermission with 21 points in a first half in which the teams traded haymakers.

Wardenaar was tagged with two fouls in the first 23 seconds, likely tapping down the Knights’ aggressiveness.

“Not only him but the whole team; what do you do when you get two fouls in 23 seconds?” Royal coach.

The Knights trimmed the lead to four points late in the third, before Van De Graaf went on a 6-0 run himself to push the lead to 10 points, 54-44.

Zillah’s lead ballooned to as much as 13, with Royal getting as close as five, before the Leopards again would pad their lead.

X Castilleja scored 12 points, Budda Aranda added 10 points and Memphis Jones had six points and 12 rebounds for Zillah, which also got a boost from its reserves Julian Calzada (seven points), RJ Curfman (3-points at the end of the first quarter) and Jaxon Maras.

Zillah shot nearly 61% and 52% for the game.

Wardenaar fought through the foul trouble, and hounding defense led by Van De Graaf and Jones, to score 25 points to lead the Knights. The left-hander also grabbed eight rebounds.

Freshman Graham Palmer continued to be a marksman for Royal, canning all 3-pointers he shot and scoring 15 points, and Dax Jenks added 13.

“I’m proud of them,” Ravet said. “The bottom line is they competed up against it early.”

It’ll be a matchup of Knights and a rematch of round-of-16 game for third and fifth place as Royal (22-5) meets King’s (19-7) at 11:15 a.m.

After splitting four matchups a season ago, Zillah won all four meetings this year, the two before Friday’s game in the final seconds.