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

Two-sport EV Knights in a familiar spot: The playoffs

East Valley seniors, from left, Matt Hoadley, Jake Reynolds, Joey Strehlou and Ronnie Jarvis all started on the Knights football team that finished third in state this year, and are starters on this year’s basketball squad as well. (J. Bart Rayniak)
Steve Christilaw wurdsmith2002@msn.com

At first look, the East Valley Knights are faced with a difficult situation as they navigate their first Great Northern League boys high school basketball tournament. But it’s nothing new for the Knights.

The team finished fifth during the regular season, guaranteeing them a series of win-or-go-home games.

Not a problem.

The Knights opened the tournament with an upset win at Cheney, handing the Blackhawks a 59-47 loss on their home court. Cheney swept both regular season games.

On Thursday, visiting EV fell to top-seeded Clarkston 63-45. The Knights faced Pullman on Friday in an elimination game.

The football team faced a similar situation in the fall, losing its first four games before righting itself and marching all the way to the state Class 2A semifinals.

“I think this has the potential to be just like football,” starting senior guard Ronnie Jarvis said.

Starting basketball players Jarvis, point guard Matt Hoadley and twin posts Joey Strehlou and Jake Reynolds all were key players for the football Knights, with the latter two earning spots in the annual East-West All-Star football game.

In all, seven members of the East Valley varsity basketball team played football for the Knights.

“In football we got on a roll and we had so much confidence in our ability to win games,” said Reynolds, a tight end/defensive lineman in football. “I know we can do that again in basketball. We haven’t been playing up to our potential. We haven’t played our best basketball yet. And I know we can.”

Jarvis agreed.

“We were successful in football and we tried to bring that over to basketball,” he said. “I think the main thing we brought with us from football was our ability to compete. We established a really good work ethic and, since we’ve all played together so long, there are absolutely no chemistry problems with this team.”

Basketball coach Drew Vanderpool was without his football players for the first three weeks of the season while the Knights worked their way through playoff wins over Clarkston and Prosser before falling to eventual state champion Tumwater in a state semifinal game in the Tacoma Dome.

“We had to postpone a couple games because they were so late getting in the gym,” Vanderpool said. “But we’d played a lot of basketball over the summer and all of these guys were returning players. Ronnie is a three-year starter and Joey started for me last year. Matt and Jake both came off the bench last year.

“All of the football players came in in good physical shape from playing football, so it didn’t take them long to be ready to play.”

“It’s always a little hard to make that transition from football to basketball as a player,” Reynolds said. “I think most of us were still kind of in that football mode for the first game or so. And there’s a difference between being in football shape and basketball shape – I know I was pretty gassed at the end of those early games.”

Reynolds leads the team in scoring, averaging 14 points per game, with Jarvis averaging 13. Reynolds also leads the team in rebounding, pulling down seven boards per game.

Hoadley, meanwhile, has been the team’s ironman point guard.

“Matt plays pretty much every minute of every game,” Vanderpool said. “His backup averages, maybe, three minutes per game. And that’s a problem for us because he’s out indefinitely.”

Hoadley took a tumble in a game Feb. 1, flying over a Bantam player and landing hard on his back, cracking a rib.

“Matt’s a tough kid,” Jarvis said. “He picked himself up and kept playing. We didn’t know until after the game that he was hurt.”

After sitting out the regular season finale, Hoadley returned to lead the team in its win at Cheney, scoring seven points in the process.

Jarvis has confidence in his team’s ability to rally.

“We’re going to have to rely on our seniors to get it done,” he said. “We can do some things differently offensively so we don’t have to rely so heavily on our point guard – we can do more motion offense.”

“We’re going to have to pick our own games up and hope that our bench can help us out,” Reynolds added.

Jarvis said the Knights have an advantage: they know how to play in win-or-go-home games.

“We’re definitely in a no-lose situation,” he said.