Mercer Island—
A Mercer Island Jewish high school made history this week, qualifying for the girls state basketball tournament in Yakima.Because of the Purim holiday this weekend and a traditional Orthodox fasting period, Northwest Yeshiva High School opted out of competition.
The team played its first game Wednesday, February 24, 2010 and lost. They were supposed to play one more team at 12:30 Thursday, February 25, 2010 but the fasting lasts from dawn until dusk. During that time, the girls can't drink water, so the coach forfeited the game.
"We knew it was definitely a possibility coming into the tournament and so I think we all had thought about it a lot. It was hard. We were all kind of disappointed we couldn't go further," says team co-captain Julia Owen.
Yeshiva's Rabbi Bernie Fox contacted the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association to see if they could work something out. According to the fast of Esther they're observing, the girls could have played tonight after 6:30 p.m.
"We offered to partner with WIAA to cover the cost of an alternative venue in Yakima so the only teams that would be affected would be us and our opponent," says Fox.
But the WIAA turned down the request, saying it would be too disruptive to tournament play and the 31 other teams competing.
Mike Colbrese says nothing like this has ever come up before and the WIAA worked as best it could to accommodate the team. Still, he says the state is open to looking at changes after this tournament is over.
"We really take pride in our religion and our faith and so we just held on to that," says Julia Owen.
The girls say they learned an important lesson, that sometimes the best decisions aren't always the easiest ones to make.
The WIAA says it won't make any decisions to change sanction rules until the end of March. The high school says it has hired an attorney if the state won't play ball.
