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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Eagles’ Coach May Miss Frontier Opener

West Valley is likely to open the Frontier League boys basketball season tonight without coach Joe Feist.

Feist faced an automatic one-game suspension after being ejected from the Eagles’ last game, the championship of the WV tournament against Gonzaga Prep last Friday.

WV point guard David Schillinger and sixth man Ty Gregorak also faced suspensions for “taunting” technical fouls and ejections in the G-Prep game, but were cleared Thursday night to play tonight pending appeals. The Eagles, who have unsuccessfully lobbied the Frontier League principals, hope to have District 7 representatives hear their case today.

The Eagles play in Chattaroy tonight against Riverside.

WV appealed the suspensions, believing the taunting rule was not properly applied, said principal Cleve Penberthey.

WV’s stance was supported by the opposing team and the referees involved. Penberthey received a fax from the president of the basketball officials association Thursday morning stating the referees said they did not apply the taunting rule correctly.

“I’m proud, without knowing these guys,” Penberthey said. “They stepped up and said they made a mistake.”

Following a 78-minute conference call, league officials decided not to reverse the suspensions based on a technicality of the appeal procedure.

Late Thursday night the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association was involved in the rules interpretation. WIAA officials contacted executive president Mike Colbrese, who was at a meeting in New Orleans. That’s when the players were cleared to play pending the appeal.

Feist was not cleared to coach because technically, his second technical and ejection came about because he left the WV bench and didn’t make an immediate appeal. It is WV’s contention, however, that Feist would not have been in that position if the situation had been handled properly.

Ugly by any name

Dale Poffenroth, your points are well made, but sorry, it’s hard to find any justification for any high school basketball game to end up 113-22.

That’s the way the Central Valley girls beat North Central in a Greater Spokane League game Wednesday.

Poffenroth was at a loss for a solution to the mismatch after his team outscored NC 36-2, 29-3, 23-4 and 25-13 in the four quarters.

The coach said the bottom line is his team can’t afford to lose another game if the Bears hold any hope of winning the league title.

NC caught the Bears after their only loss of the season at Ferris and before a crucial stretch of league games against Gonzaga Prep tonight, Shadle Park Tuesday and Mead next Friday.

“We lost to Ferris because we didn’t control the tempo,” Poffenroth said. He doesn’t want that to happen again.

The Bears did against NC, pushing the ball up the floor and using their quickness, something CV must do to make up for its lack of size.

One NC problem was shooting. The Indians got off 47 shots, according to both coaches, but made just five. Ironically, CV had 46 shots when losing to Ferris, which also shot 46 times in the 51-40 win, and Shadle Park only had 40 shots when losing to Mead Wednesday night.

“I don’t know what to do,” Poffenroth said, looking ahead to the rematch Jan. 30. “How long have I been doing this? This team broke the school scoring record three times already this year and probably won’t win the league. I have had better teams but I’ve never had 10 kids this good.”

Maybe everyone should take a lesson from NC coach John Reid. He handled the loss with dignity and integrity and encouraged his players to do the same. Every one attended school on Thursday with their heads up and practiced hard for tonight’s game against Ferris.

Reid discouraged others from creating a scene and went so far as to say in some ways it takes more experience to keep from running up the score than it does in reaching obscene numbers.

The bottom line for Reid was that the Indians played hard until the end. “There’s nothing more you could ask,” he said.

Still, all things considered, there had to be a way for CV to work toward its season objectives without humiliating NC.

“(NC coach) John Reid would never say a bad thing about anyone, but I was there and I can,” NC activities director John McCoy said. “That’s a program destroyer. There are ways to hold the score down even with a 30-second shot clock. That was a nice welcome to a new coach.”

It’s impossible to disagree.

, DataTimes