The end has always loomed, as certain as the sunrise, yet now that it’s nearly here the suddenness of its arrival has four Baker boys basketball players pondering the past as well as the present.

“Surreal,” is Palmer Chandler’s succinct description.

“It came so fast,” his longtime teammate, Jaxon Logsdon, says.

Those two, along with fellow seniors Isaiah Jones and Grant Gambleton, gathered after the usual 5:30 a.m. practice on Wednesday, March 5.

They reminisced about their dozens of practices in the Baker gym.

The hundreds of hours filled with the unique squeak of sneakers on polished hardwood, the background music pouring from speakers, the sweet swish as the ball slips through the net, the rim untouched.

And they talked, these four, about what’s to come three days later.

When they will play together for the last time in this gym where they have shed so much sweat as they strived to perfect their dribbling and defense.

The Bulldogs, the defending Class 4A state champions, will play The Dalles in a playoff game Saturday, March 8, at 4 p.m.

With a win Baker will return to the state tournament for the fourth straight year, needing three wins in as many days, March 13-15 at Forest Grove High School, to claim the school’s fourth boys state basketball title.

And the first back-to-back championship.

But first the practices, and one last game in front of their fans.

“We’re just trying to embrace every part of it,” Gambleton said. “We grew up together, from little kids, all those practices.”

These four are part of a group of eight boys who started playing together when they really were boys, second and third graders.

And all along they learned the game from coach Jebron Jones, who is Isaiah’s dad, and assistant coach Roland Hobson.

(Isaiah’s younger brother, Rasean, is a junior on the team.)

In March 2024 they fulfilled the promise they had showed for many years, when they were regularly beating teams of older boys in tournaments across Oregon and the West.

Two — Paul Hobson and Hudson Spike — were seniors who graduated last year. Both went on to play football at Eastern Oregon University.

Eli Long is a junior this year.

The fifth senior is Eli’s older brother, Jaron, a key member of last year’s championship team.

Jaron wasn’t allowed to participate in sports this year after the Oregon School Activities Association denied his appeal, ruling that because he was enrolled at Baker High School briefly as a freshman in 2020, though he never played sports, his four years of eligibility expired in 2024.

The City
The four seniors said the spectators who crowd the bleachers in the Baker gym have inspired them for their entire high school careers.

That community support in part explains why the team’s new jerseys this year don’t have “Baker” or “Bulldogs” printed across the chests.

Emblazoned there instead are two words: “The City.”

“It represents how close the community is,” Gambleton said. “The city is where we come from, what we represent.”

“It’s who we play for,” Jones said. “None of us plays just for ourselves.”

 

The last home game

The four seniors acknowledge that practices this week, leading up to their final game in the BHS gym, have felt different.

“The thought of it being over, it’s already hitting me,” Chandler said.

Gambleton said that during the past decade, when he and his teammates practiced and played together hundreds of times, he “barely even thought about the end.”

But he certainly thinks about it now.

“You just want to make the most of it,” Gambleton said. “Enjoy the crowd.”

“Soak it all in,” Logsdon said.

One thing won’t change Saturday afternoon, though.

Gambleton said the team, as it always does, will leave the court together in the middle of the pregame warmup period.

They will gather in the back of the locker room and pray together.

“As a team,” he said.

 

Defending champions

The seniors acknowledged that they have to deal with a different sort of pressure as the defending state champions.

The Bulldogs went 29-1 last season and dominated all three games at the state tournament, including a 75-58 rout of Junction City in the championship game.

“We’ve set a standard for ourselves by winning,” Jones said. “It’s not easy.”

Logsdon said that although there is pressure, it is “healthy pressure” — the sort that inspires rather than frightens.

“Last year — we can’t rely on that,” Gambleton said.

“We learned what it takes to get there,” Chandler said.

Gambleton laughs as he thinks about how different he and his teammates felt during their first trip to the state tournament in 2022, when he, Jones, Logsdon and Jaron Long were freshmen on a team that lost both of its tournament games.

“When we were freshmen we were all shaking and nervous,” Gambleton said.

But those timid freshmen are now seasoned seniors, with the experience from three straight state tournaments to rely on.

Nor is that the only experience they can draw on during tense periods on the court.

The Bulldogs competed in the Les Schwab Invitational tournament in Portland in December, one of the nation’s most prestigious high school events.

Although Baker lost each of its four games — playing without Jones, who was recovering from an appendectomy — the Bulldogs say they gained valuable experience playing in front of large crowds.

 

Preparing for the end

The seniors’ goal, of course, is to finish this season — and their high school careers — just as they did a year ago.

Climbing a ladder to snip a section of the net at Forest Grove High School as they celebrate a state title.

But that conclusion, wherever and however it happens, will be heavy with emotion.

Gambleton said he’s thought about that experience, knowing it will stay with him always.

“Nothing will set in until we are together in the locker room after the last game.”