A week after the Crete High boys’ surprise district title win over Seward and qualification for this week’s state tournament, the pinch-and-see-if-it’s-a-dream phase is probably about over.

But then again, the whole going to state deal is something that doesn’t wear off right away. To say that nobody saw it coming, aside from perhaps a few close to the team, could be the understatement of the year.

Crete plays top-seeded Omaha Skutt in Thursday’s first round game with a 7 p.m. tip-off at Pershing. A victory would send them to a semifinal against either Beatrice or Pius X Friday at 3:45 in the Sports Center.

On Saturday, the Class B championship game will be played at 1:30 in the Sports Center. The consolation game is set for 10 a.m. at Lincoln Northeast.

Going into the district tourney, the Cardinals had defeated only one of the four other teams in the field — York, a squad they were destined not to play. They were 0-4 against the teams they ended up playing.

Crete had lost twice at Schuyler, in the first round of the conference tournament and then again 11 days later back at Schuyler in the regular season; at Aurora, in an albeit hard-fought eight-point overtime loss on Feb. 12; and then to Seward, in a dismal 24-point setback on Feb. 19.

What magic, what inner force was called upon to turn all of that around and send a 4-14 regular season team into the state tournament?

“There’s just an amazing amount of fight in this whole team,” Cardinal sophomore Mitch Marvin said. “There’s something that wasn’t there the whole season until we got to districts. We really came together in the end.”

Perhaps there’s something to be said for the attractive force of redemption. The Cardinals, largely with the same group of guys, soldiered bravely through a one-win season in 2008-09 against 19 losses. There were glimmers of improvement this season, but also long stretches of frustration.

At the end of each season, though, is perched an opportunity to make all of those struggles a little more significant. The slate is wiped clean in district tournament play. Perform well enough for two or three nights, and check out your dance card.

“We had nothing to lose,” 6-foot-10 (and still growing) junior post man Grant Harms, he of the three alley-oop slam dunks against Seward, said.

And things finally started to go right.

“Our confidence is up and there’s a lot of good feelings on the team,” he said. “We’re going to ride this wave as long as we can.”

There’s no question that the Cardinals are going to have to paddle pretty furiously to ride this next one. As the eighth seed in the Class B bracket, Crete drew top-seeded Omaha Skutt.

Yeah, yeah. The same Skutt that knocked the Crete High football team out of the playoffs last fall. But that’s just a fact that a reporter has to mention. This is a different season, a different sport.

And the Cardinal boys have done all right for themselves against teams they supposedly shouldn’t be able to beat. We might just as well take our seats and go along for the ride.