Mike Vlahovich

Amid the bedlam that is the Rubber Chicken spirit game, Ferris and Lewis and Clark did their best to heighten the excitement. Going back and forth, quarter by quarter, both teams gave the 5,380 screamers in attendance a game worth watching. It wasn’t until the Tigers’ Taylor Eglet’s 3-pointer with time expiring in overtime bounced off the rim Tuesday night at the Spokane Arena that the Saxons could savor a 54-51 victory.

It is interesting to note that Sean Fischer – yes, the Gonzaga Prep 6-foot-1 guard who last week hung 31 points on defending State 4A champion Ferris – did not pick up a basketball for organized play until seventh grade. Nearly seven years prior were spent with his family in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where his father, Jim, practiced medicine and Sean was a promising Little League baseball catcher.

Trailing 5-0 early during its game with North Central, unbeaten Gonzaga Prep ultimately had too much depth, which, matched with a non-stop defensive work ethic, produced a 65-35 Greater Spokane League boys basketball victory Tuesday night. The Bullpups (9-0) parlayed the offense of point guard David Stockton and impressive defense by sophomore reserve Chris Sarbaugh into a rally from late in the first quarter to early in the second quarter. And they put the game out of reach in the second half by outscoring the visiting Indians (5-3) 26-8.

Lewis and Clark’s girls basketball followed a pattern this week. Successful though it was, coach Jim Redmon would prefer it doesn’t become a habit. The Tigers (8-0) dug themselves a 14-point first-half deficit at home against Mead Friday night in a game between Greater Spokane League co-leaders.

Anthony Brown was just a sophomore when he caught the eye of Washington State University’s basketball coaching staff. It was the summer after his sophomore season that he orally committed to attend WSU.

Wrestlers being wrestlers can at times live life on the edge. It seems appropriate that one of them, Mike Reed, would find his calling in a hazardous business. For the past six years Reed, who more than 30 years ago was West Valley’s first state champion and two-time national champ at Eastern Washington University, has been employed by Federal Engineers and Contractors, a firm in Richland, working on the Hanford Nuclear superfund cleanup site.

Midway through the third quarter and trailing 39-26, Shadle Park boys basketball players had an epiphany: They were the more experienced team. Heretofore outhustled and outscored by youthful Ferris, and in danger of losing their own unbeaten record – at home yet – the Highlanders found resolve and another second-half outburst by Anthony Brown for a 66-59 victory Friday in Greater Spokane League boys basketball.

When choosing a motto for the upcoming wrestling season at defending State 1A champion Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls), coach Troy Hughes decided on “Band of Brothers” originally because the team in general is one big family. Turns out the theme had literal implications as well.

There’s something about the way Mt. Spokane’s boys basketball team plays defense that gives Gonzaga Prep fits. The Wildcats beat the Bullpups twice last year. Tuesday night at G-Prep, they led early and trailed by only three points late in the third quarter.

On the drive home from Portland after watching his high school runners’ championship performance at the Nike Cross Nationals, North Central cross country coach Jon Knight told fellow traveler and coaching assistant Len Long, “We’re glowing so bright we don’t even need headlights.” The pair, who could not coach their charges once the season ended with the state championships in November, had a vested interest in the outcome as spectators.

The last time LaCrosse-Washtucna-Kahlotus played Wishkah Valley was a thriller at home in mid-September, the second game of the football season. Their 44-38 shootout, won by LWK, turned out to be a preview of things to come.