Frontier Teams Roll Into League All Squads Improve On Last Year’s Records
Preseason wins have the Valley’s Class AA boys and girls basketball teams hungry for the main course: the Frontier League.
Each team approaches the Frontier League season with a standing equal to or better than last year.
As the league season loomed last year, the teams’ records were: West Valley boys, 7-2; East Valley boys, 0-7; WV girls, 3-6; and EV girls, 1-6.
Prior to this week’s WV holiday tournament, the teams’ records were improved in each case: WV boys, 6-0; EV boys, 2-4; WV girls, 5-2; and EV girls, 3-3.
When the league schedule begins Friday - with WV on the road against new member Riverside and EV at home against Pullman there are reasons to believe those preseason outcomes weren’t a fluke.
East Valley boys: The Knights finished 0-20 last season for first-year coach Rich King and started this campaign with three losses by slim margins.
But EV has won two of its last three, including a win over last year’s State A finalist Medical Lake.
“That was the first time our kids realized they were going to win some games,” King said. “Last year … they never truly felt they could.”
Transfers James Spotted Horse from South Dakota and Brad Wilson from Iowa have given EV a scoring boost. Spotted Horse, a junior recovering from a broken nose suffered when he ran into Wilson during practice, leads the Knights with 18 points and 10 rebounds per game.
Senior Kyle LeGrant, a left-handed streak shooter, has converted many of his team-leading steals into baskets. EV has offensive potential it scored 78 points in the final 25 minutes against Lakeland (Idaho) - but King frets about a lack of height.
King selected WV as the “class of the league,” but expects Pullman and Cheney to challenge that distinction.
West Valley boys: The departure of many seniors was supposed to hurt the Eagles, who have won or shared the last five league titles. Instead, senior point guard David Schillinger and a strong group of juniors have WV streaking again.
”(The league) is scary from my vantage point,” said WV coach Joe Feist. “There are probably no state champions, but everyone is competitive. My biggest concern is that we’re very young.”
Schillinger has averaged more than 20 points per game. The Eagles recently welcomed back strongman Ty Gregorak, who was injured during football season.
Feist called Pullman, which relied on juniors last year, the “team to beat.”
East Valley girls: First-year coach Darsi Frazier inherits a veteran team, with three-year starters Farrah Parsley, Star Olson and Linsay Porter, and veteran Angela Overdorff. The trick is to keep them together; Parsley missed two weeks because of a family emergency, then Overdorff fell ill when Parsley returned.
“We want to click and come together by the end of the season,” said Frazier, who has battled a stubborn cold for nearly a month. “That’s when we want to mesh.”
Having played at Clarkston, Frazier knows the league. She figures this title race to be fairly even, with defending champion Cheney and WV among the biggest hurdles.
Three Knights played for the volleyball team that qualified for the state tournament. Frazier expects their motivation to pay dividends this winter.
West Valley girls: The Eagles’ biggest win was on the road against Sandpoint, a ranked Idaho A-1 team.
“I was personally thinking if we stayed within 10 (points) it’d be nice,” said WV coach Mark Kuipers.
Kiesha Sowers and Gabrielle McClintock have been the most consistent scorers while WV awaits the return of Dawn Salfer. Kuipers said Salfer hasn’t been cleared to play because of persistent leg pain.
The Eagles have lost only to larger schools (Shadle Park and Post Falls). Kuipers has attempted to play his entire roster to avoid exhaustion.
“I’ve been telling the girls, ‘Don’t get caught up in (the good preseason record) right now,”’ Kuipers said. “What we’re preparing for is the league.”
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