A Tale Of Two Teams Season’s Successes At The Best Of Times Weave A Story Of Athletic Excellence For Mead, Rogers
Mead and Rogers high school teams finished at opposite ends of the Greater Spokane League sports spectrum.
But both left their legacy of success on the recently completed 1994-95 athletic season.
The beat went on for the Panthers, who won 11 league championships, finished second three other times out of 18 GSL sports and earned with it all their 14th straight sportswriters All-Sports Trophy.
Rogers, which finished last among nine teams when all-sports points were compiled, drummed up its own brand of excitement anyway.
Principal Wallace Williams wouldn’t compare the two programs and said Rogers’ athletic success had more impact in the community than within a building that stresses academics.
“I don’t want to minimize it. I’m elated,” Williams said of his school’s season in the sun. “But I don’t want to create a picture where we’re alive and well because we’re winning.
“Rogers is an excellent school,
We’ve always felt that.”
It was the kind of season that began when six of nine GSL schools placed at least second in football. It ended with the possibility that four teams would tie for first place in baseball.
Included were state championships by Mead distance runners in the fall and again in the spring and Rogers’ second-place state finish in softball.
The year’s major disappointment came in basketball, where no Spokane boys team qualified for state. You’d have to go back more than 20 years, under the old regional format when only four teams went to Seattle, for that to have happened before.
Still, Mead’s girls placed at state for the sixth straight year.
Mead is accustomed to athletic success, indeed expects it. It is the GSL’s largest school with a numbers advantage over the rest of the league.
That the Panthers won league titles in boys and girls cross country and track, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, softball, boys golf and tennis came as no surprise.
Although Rogers didn’t pose such gaudy numbers, the seeds were sown for achievement in a morning conditioning program that produced excitement in football, boys basketball, wrestling and softball.
“No doubt the program has helped tremendously,” said Williams. “It helped with teamwork, camaraderie, and helped them set and reach goals.”
Cory Smiley was an example of its benefits. He was All-GSL and the league’s second-leading rusher in football and an All-GSL outfielder and .396 hitter on the district-qualifying baseball team.
Last year the Pirates had their first winning and playoff GSL football season, part of a five-team secondplace tie, along with Mead, which was in the grid playoffs for the sixth straight year.
Basketball nearly produced a miracle for the Pirates, who placed sixth in league but went farther in post-season play than did champion Mead, coming within a win of state.
Mead and Rogers finished second and third respectively in GSL wrestling and sixth and ninth at state.
This spring, the schools capped the year with a flair.
Mead’s dominant spring sports showing included 30 All-GSL athletes, the state championship and third place in track, and second and third at state in golf.
Rogers secured an unprecedented second-place state fastpitch softball finish.
High school careers came to an end for Panther state champions Skiy DeTray and Micah Davis (in both cross country and track) and for fouryear Pirate softball All-GSL players Traci Moore and Shannon Zahrowski.
It ended also for a host of their teammates who contributed to school success throughout the year. They will long remember the heartbreaks and savor the successes.
It is something two schools of disparate athletic backgrounds had in common.
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