Hoopers ball on in soggy Hoopfest Championship Sunday

The rain seems to have a knack for attending some of Spokane’s signature events: first soaking the Bloomsday race in May and now pouring on the thousands gathered at the final day of Hoopfest.

The ominous clouds, brief deluges of rain and occasional claps of thunder didn’t stop Earth’s largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament Sunday from taking over 45 blocks of downtown Spokane and surrounding areas.

At around 2 p.m., a gray mass crawled over the already overcast sky and rain quickly drenched unsuspecting players and onlookers. With very little drizzle as a warning, bystanders crouched under bushes and fled to awnings of nearby businesses and huddled together, still craning their necks to watch the games. Some coaches retreated to covered areas, hollering vague directions to their soggy players.

“Good thing they’re already wearing swim shorts, though,” one coach remarked from the shelter of his players in matching swim trunks.

Players forged on, affected differently by the rain.

“It was nothing,” shrugged 11-year-old Melo Ross. “We play in snow, we play in anything.”

Melo’s team, the Tacoma Renegades, claimed the championship for their bracket, their second year earning the title.

Some on the team of fourth-graders have played basketball more years of their life than not. They enjoy playing with their friends, working as a team and getting to be leaders on the court.

Like Hooptown USA, Tacoma is also a large basketball city, the young Renegades said.

“We just had to let Spokane know what we’re known for,” said Jerell McKeever, 11.

Melo loves the places basketball takes him, like Spokane. Sunday’s weather left the West Sider one impression of the city: It’s “rainy,” he said.

Though the deluge lasted around a half-hour and some brief showers hit downtown later, the National Weather Service recorded one-tenth of an inch of rain at Spokane International Airport as scattered showers and thunderstorms moved through northeast Washington and North Idaho, meteorologist Jon Fox said.

While recent Hoopfests have been hotter than normal, the high temperature Sunday was 79 degrees, which is about average for the date, Fox said.

Though the young Tacoma team were unperturbed by the weather, a local group of teenagers found it disadvantageous to their play. They won the game regardless.

The rain-drenched ball was much heavier, the team said, and slipped out of their hands as they tried to make baskets. Meanwhile, water quickly gathered in cracks in the asphalt at their feet.

“We were slipping all over the place,” Marek Parson, 15, said. “You really couldn’t shoot well, it was like a slip-and-slide out there.”

When the rain began to dump, leaving the court wasn’t on the teenagers’ minds.

“You just gotta keep going, gotta keep fighting just to win; the main goal is to win,” 15-year-old Caden Tony said.

The team preferred dry games, finding them “more competitive,” when all parties are at the top of their game.

For 16-time Hoopfest veteran Robert Christenson, the absence of sun beating down on the blacktop was a welcome difference. As sprinkles began collecting on his brow and mixing with beads of sweat, he envied the players who got the shower.

“Where was this when I was playing?” he joked.

Christenson enters the tournament each year with his team, Five FingR ball SlingRs. Over a dozen bear the team’s name and meander through the Hoopfest crowds in neon pink jerseys, including his family who hand out extra refreshments they pull in a wagon to other teams.

Though he “hates basketball,” Christenson is compelled to participate in Hoopfest by a work buddy, always on the same team for 16 years.

You can find the Spokane Valley pair entering competitions of basketball, softball, bowling or any sport under their signature team name, with Christenson begrudgingly participating.

“My friend won’t let me quit,” he said.

Reporter James Hanlon contributed to this article.