Saxon Girls Advancing To Regional Play

Not even losing the district championship game to Gonzaga Prep last Friday could tarnish the shine of the Ferris girls basketball team’s stunning upset over Central Valley a night earlier.

Karie Pruett and Christy Martin each hit three 3-point baskets, Amy George had two, and Janelle Morrisette had one trey as the Saxons dumped the regular-season champs 39-38. The Saxons actually led by four points near the buzzer, but CV hit a last-second bucket from half-court.

CV had been averaging 76 points a game and drilled Ferris in each of the team’s two previous Greater Spokane League meetings. The difference Thursday night?

“It was our best defensive effort all year,” said Coach Art Rojas. “It was a huge win.

“I just talked to the girls about going out hard nosed and getting after it.”

A night later, Ferris was down just 41-40 against G-Prep inside two minutes to go before a turnover, four free throws, and a driving lay-in by G-Prep’s Lisa Bradley finished off the Saxons, 50-42.

It would have been nice to come out of the districts as the No. 1 seed, Rojas admits. Still, as his No. 2 Saxons get set for the regional tourney this week, he said, “We play well when there is more on the line.”

“I’m excited about our chances,” Rojas said. “It’s really fun to see our girls playing with so much confidence.”

LC banking on the future

Lewis and Clark’s first-year girls basketball coach Jim Redmon has been described by his peers as having “a basketball mind.”

Ever evaluating, ever tinkering - a brain intent on wringing meaning from the often chaotic happenings out on the hardwood.

So even as the seconds ticked away on the Lewis and Clark girls basketball team’s 58-38 district loss to G-Prep, Redmon was already looking back on his 1996-97 squad - evaluating - as well as looking ahead to the one that will walk into the gym next November.

There is the obvious downside: Redmon loses the GSL’s second-leading scorer in Becki Huddle. With her 17.3 points a game, Huddle led the Tigers to their first post-season venture in three years.

The departure of a top-10 career GSL scorer is going to hurt, Redmon says.

But maybe not that much.

Occupying the much brighter, happier side of Redmon’s mental landscape are thoughts of four returning starters.

Mary Thompson, Carlin Oeljin, Katie Marquess, and Sara Giebel - as well as key reserve Janelle Wendle - are all underclassmen. As well, a group of some 30 freshman - “everybody in the GSL is talking about them,” Redmon says - will be a year older and wiser by next fall.

No other school in the GSL, besides Ferris, returns so many players to a program. Mead and Gonzaga Prep each lose three starters to graduation, and league champion Central Valley loses four.

“We aren’t going to have one huge superstar next year, but I think you’ll see five to eight kids who can really play the game,” Redmon says.

Redmon says his whole goal this season was to get LC basketball “back on the map” with a district appearance. Next year he’d like usher the girls into regionals for the first time since early this decade.

“The important thing is basketball is fun again at Lewis and Clark,” Redmon says.

Medical Lake going to state

There was something about Saturday night’s basketball game at Mead High School that struck Medical Lake coach Dave Olzendam as decidedly deja vu.

No, it wasn’t the location. It wasn’t the stale concession candy available in the gymnasium store, either.

The winner-to-state, loser-to-spring sports matchup between the Cardinals and Chewelah High School marked the fifth time these two teams met this year.

It wasn’t easy, but ML finally squeaked out a 45-43 win after Chewelah whiffed its final shot attempt with four seconds to go.

“It’s gone back and forth between us all year,” Olzendam said of the series that was split 2-2 going into the playoff game. “I figured it was our turn to win this time.”

Brandon Moore had 17 points, including 9 of the Cardinal’s 18 third-quarter points that erased a 25-17 Chewelah halftime lead. Carlos Simmons added 16.

But it was Jeff Nichols, with gritty play inside the last two minutes of the game, who helped hold off the Cougars.

First, he drew a charge. Then, he dove on the floor to tie up a loose ball with the possession arrow in ML’s favor.

Finally, Nichols’ critical rebound of a missed Cardinal free throw in the final minute helped ice the win.

Cheney boys under the gun

In an interview last weekend, Cheney coach Denny Humphery admitted, “We never do it the easy way.”

He was in his West Plains home, but you could practically hear his sigh of frustration from as far as Spokane, even when you held the telephone receiver away from your ear.

Here is Humphery’s dilemma: On Feb. 22, Cheney lost its last game of the year to West Valley 52-42, setting up a tie-breaker between the two teams to decide who got the coveted No. 2 seed and first-round district bye. On Feb. 25, Cheney turned around and beat WV in overtime, 76-75.

Last Saturday night, however, the Blackhawks blacked out. They squandered a 32-25 halftime lead and wound up losing big to the Eagles, 74-55.

“This is a very up-and-down team,” Humphery said. “We just came out with zero intensity.”

To get to state, Cheney now must play Clarkston Friday night for the right to play the loser of WV-Colville’s district title match on Saturday.

“I’ve been trying to tell the kids that there are 1,000 other high schools teams across the state that didn’t make it to districts who would trade places with us,” Humphery said. “We’ve got to be mentally focused.”

Ferris wins district title

Since the Ferris Saxons fell midseason to Shadle Park, the word “upswing” has crept more and more prominently into Coach Wayne Gilman’s vocabulary.

After Ferris completed a clean sweep of the district tournament last week, the word seems to aptly describe the team’s play as it heads into the most important week of the season so far.

Justin Bursch led the Saxons on both Thursday and Friday night, dumping in 16 points in a 60-41 drubbing of Mead and then unloading for a career-high 25 in the Saxons’ 65-46 title-match win over Shadle Park.

“I wouldn’t say I expected to beat them, but I felt if we played to our capabilities, we could beat them by 15,” Gilman said after the win.

Tommy Servine nailed three 3-point baskets and finished with 15 points against Shadle, while Jason Weatherred scored 8 points and rounded up 13 important rebounds.