WIBCA All-Star Weekend: Special Olympics Washington Unified Game Shines!

3/17/2024

(Bellevue, WA) The Washington Interscholastic Coaches Association (WIBCA) tipped off Saturday morning with the Special Olympics Washington Unified Champion Schools All-Star game. The Unified program is availavble to all schools who can field a team in basketball and they also offer team soccer in the Spring.

The Special Olympics Washington who oversee the program outlines the mission of the program. “The Unified Champion Schools program is dedicated to promoting social inclusion through shared sports training and competition experiences, Unified Sports joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team. It was inspired by a simple principle: training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding.

In Unified Sports, teams are made up of people of similar age and ability, which makes practices more fun and games more challenging and exciting for all. Having sport in common is just one more way that preconceptions and false ideas are swept away.”

The other issue swept away is the desire to win and play hard and that was obvious from the beginning tip to the final buzzer. The teams were comprised of the home team in white shirts and the visiting team in navy blue and played 2 15-min running clock halves.

After a bit of a slow start, James Jones got things started with a break-away 2 for the Navy Blue team and took a 4-0 lead after Evan Franco got in the score book. The White team then countered with a acore from Haaland Christiansen followed by the tying bucket from Bryce Littman.

Both teams would go back and forth never getting to far apart when Littman hit another score for a 10-6 lead which was then countered by a fantastic 3-ball from Navy Blue’s Jonathan Diaz to pull within 1. Joshua Longnecker wasn’t having any of that and drained his own triple and White went back up by 4. By halftime both teams were locked up at 17-17 as Jones scored again for the White team and he got help from Elliott Weinmann who knocked down 2 scores and 2 poionts from Brodie Callanan. Navy Blue answered with scores from Asher Rosenstock, Christiansen, Littman and Longnecker.

In the 2nd half with the White team leading 22-21 Luke Dahl hit a critical shot followed by Rosenstock with another 2 to lead by 5 with less than 6-minutes to play. The Navy Blue team dug down and went on an amazing run, first they shut out the White team for the final 5:30 and reeled off 11 straight points to secure the win.

The run began with Evan Franco scoring 2 at the 3:15 mark to make it 26-23. Joshua Grubb followed up with 2 and team Navy Blue was just a point behind. The next big play came from James Jones with a tremendous block and fed the ball to Brodie Callanan who scored and gave Navy Blue a 27-26 lead. Then with about a minute to play Joshua Grubb with the dagger step back 3-ball for the 30-26 lead. James Jones then finished the game like he began it scoring th final 2 points as time expired giving Navy Blue the 32-26 final score victory.

The White team was awarded Silver medals and each player got a small commemorative basketball with the medal. Bryce Littman of Puyallup was named Sportsman of the game for the White team and earned an autographed Basketball for the honor. The Navy Blue team got Gold medals with the commorative balls and Joshua Grubb from Mount Tahoma High School won the Sportsman award for the winning team.

If you are interested in getting your student or helping your school get involved with the Special Olympics Washington Unified Champion Schools program or any of the other terrific programs the Special Olympics offers or would like to donate or volunteer go to their website for more information. Special Olympics Washington web site link

Below are the scoring stats along with full rosters and coaches. That’s followed by interviews that ESN did with some of players, the ESN Post Game show, video highlights and a huge photo gallery.

**Note, we apologize if we mispronounced anyone’s names during the broadcast and we know we had one mistake with Brodie Callanan, our guys were looking at a hand-written scorebook and it looked like Callahan so Brodie is referred to as Callahan in the broadcast. We apologize to Brodie and his family as the n looked like an h from the scorebook perspective.

Navy Blue Roster

1 Jonathan Diaz Kamiak HS
3 James Jones Mount Tahoma HS
4 Joshua Grubb Mount Tahoma HS
5 Evan Franco Skyview HS
10 Elliott Weinmann West Seattle HS
11 Gibson Aguilar West Seattle HS
12 Julian Gregor Skyview HS
13 Brodie Callanan Puyallup HS
14 Tyra Karanja Puyallup HS
Head Coach Tim Bauer West Seattle HS
Assistant Coach Jessica O’Connor West Seattle HS

White Roster

1 Bryce Littman Puyallup HS
2 Ella Kunz Kamiak HS
4 Joshua Longnecker Puyallup HS
5 Miles Higgins Kamiak HS
10 Haaland Christiansen Kamiak HS
11 Jacob Champine Battle Ground HS
12 Luke Dahl Battle Ground HS
13 Asher Rosenstock West Seattle HS
Head Coach Joshua Wisnubroto Kamiak HS
Assistant Coach Rheeno Kwak Kamiak HS

Scoring

Navy Blue Team
James Jones 10, Evan Franco 6, Joshua Grubb 5, Elliott Weimann 4, Brodie Callanan 4, Jonathan Diaz 3

White Team
Asher Rosenstock 9, Joshua Longnecker 5, Haaland Christiansen 5, Bryce Littman 4, Luke Dahl 2, Ella Kunz 1

***Please note the Eli Sports Network gives anyone the right to take and use or reproduce any of the materials in this story for personal use. ESN firther gives Special Olympics Washington full access to any and all of these materials for their use in promoting Special Olympics and Special Olympics Washington Unified Champion Schools.