Mick Bittick Quotations

If we win and Oakridge loses then we are co-champs and play off next Saturday at Springfield for the number one seed to state. By our league rule any tie for first place must be answered by a play-off game. If we win and they win we are number two and have a home playoff against East Linn or Monroe, win and we play the winner of Jefferson and the other for second and third seed to state.

John just got in the right spot at the right time, got the ball for some jump shots. He was consistent.

Jefferson seemed to get hot each time we started to pull away. They would find the open man for a 16-17-foot jump shot and they just didn't miss in the fourth quarter.

I was honored to be named Coach of the Year. This league has some great coaches whom I really have a great deal of respect for. It is nice to have your peers honor you in that manner. However, the honor really belongs to the team. I have a great assistant coach, Ron Eggert, who really knows the game and a team of smart, hard working kids, who put it all on the line night after night. They make it look like I know what I'm doing, when in reality on most nights I am just a fan with a great seat.

It was a one-point ballgame with three minutes left. Gilliland hit his only shot of the night. He hit a 3 and after he hit that it put us up two and it seemed like after that Clatskanie panicked.

Derek played an outstanding game all the way around. He was able to pass well, shoot well, and played great and had an awesome block that he pinned on the backboard.

I've haven't looked at the film, but for a point guard especially, it seems unreal. I know we blocked a lot of shots, but I'm not sure if that total is right. If it is, that is pretty impressive.

In general we played well. We were able to keep the emotion and tempo at the level we wanted. Jefferson is a tough place to play. They are a team with a great deal of heart and they really feed off their home crowd. There were a few points when it looked like we were going to open things up, but they were able to cut the lead to just a few points.

I'm so proud of the work and effort these guys put in. Waldport should be proud of these kids. They played, won and lost with class.