Shootin’ Bear Give Him The Ball; Corby Schuh Accepts The Scoring Burden For CV Team

Like most basketball players who shoulder a team’s scoring burden, Central Valley’s Corby Schuh hasn’t met a shot he didn’t like.

“I’m a typical streak shooter,” the left-handed Schuh said. “I can make eight in a row or miss eight in a row.”

Schuh, who is as comfortable shooting from 20 feet away as in close, set for himself this year an impossible standard.

He opened the season with games of 36 and 32 points during non-league wins over Richland and Coeur d’Alene.

Although he’s averaged better than 14 points per game since, including five outings of 17 points or more, those figures, he says, seem to pale by comparison.

“I wish it would be the same every game,” he said. “You want 30, and if not, it’s disappointing.”

Central Valley’s season has mirrored Schuh’s. An overtime win against Lewis and Clark early and two successive offensive outbursts, over Kamiakin and Shadle Park, gave rise to optimism.

The team has also struggled at times offensively. Last Friday the team couldn’t buy a shot during a 20-point loss to Mead and finished 4-4 midway through the Greater Spokane League season.

“We just came out flat,” said Schuh. who had one-third of CV’s 36 points. “I had open looks, but once I missed a couple of shots, it got frustrating.”

Still, CV coach Terry Irwin maintains the utmost confidence in Schuh, who has provided the Bears with two years of electricity.

“He can shoot it, no question about it,” said Irwin, who added that until others began to help with scoring, Schuh was asked to do a lot. “It was a real strain on him. There was a lot of weight on his shoulders.”

Irwin noticed that Schuh was blessed with an ability to shoot, even as a sophomore.

“All I did was shoot threes,” said Schuh. “I was pretty short and pretty slow.”

Last year his range improved and he showed a better ability to shoot under pressure.

“I grew a bit over the summer, lifted weights and lost weight,” said Schuh. “It helped.”

As a result, Whitworth College has been in close contact with Schuh.

“He’s been working hard on other aspects of the game,” said Irwin. “He has excellent body control, can jump and has quick lateral movement.”

Schuh needs to learn to drive to the basket more and improve his quickness but knows there is room in the game for a three-point shooter. For the year he’s making 40 percent of his shots from beyond the arc.

“That’s what I’ve done ever since I started basketball in the sixth grade,” he said. “Three points are better than two.”

He also knows that CV’s .500 start and his current scoring average put in jeopardy his goals of a state trip and 20-point average this season.

“It’s iffy,” he said. “But we still have a shot at third place, and as long as we’re in district, we have a shot.”

Spoken like a true shooter.

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