Regional Tourney Should Net Good Action

If the Eastern AAA regional volleyball tournament is half as intriguing as last week’s Cavanaugh’s Inns/District 8 tournament, volleyball fans are in for a treat.

The first regional for volleyball putting together the Greater Spokane League’s single berth for the State AAA tournament and the Big Nine’s two begins Friday in Wenatchee.

The 7 p.m. games are GSL No. 1 Ferris against Big Nine No. 4 Wenatchee and GSL No. 3 Gonzaga Prep, the GSL regular-season champion, against Pasco, the Big Nine No. 2. At 8 p.m. it’s Lewis and Clark against Davis and North Central against Big Nine champion Walla Walla.

The first games to qualify teams for state, which is at the Arena in Spokane next weekend, are at 10 a.m. on Saturday. The third-place game is at 5 p.m.

A young and thin but continually improving Lewis and Clark squad started the GSL intrigue by knocking off league runner-up Ferris in the second round. Then the Tigers stunned Gonzaga Prep. Ferris rebounded to beat NC, Prep and LC to capture the district title.

“It was not a pretty start,” Ferris coach Stacey Ward said. “It was a little gut check there. Saturday morning we decided we didn’t want to give it all up.”

A big boost for Ferris was moving 6-foot-2 Jennifer Swinton into the starting lineup for the final three matches, Ward said.

“To us it’s a mental advantage more than anything else,” said Ward of winning the district title, “knowing that you can lose a tough one and come back and play well. It’s especially important at this time, tournament time, when you can lose one any time. Knowing you can come back is the biggest plus.”

Now Prep has to see how it responds to its first losses to GSL rivals.

“It hurt, it was painful, but it was a good hurt. We hadn’t experienced that before,” Prep coach Steve Gillis said. “Great teams play with a lot of heart when it counts and we’ll see if we’re one of those teams this weekend.”

The district tournament upsets put Ferris and Prep in the same bracket.

“LC is playing awfully well,” Ward said. “It doesn’t matter (which bracket), you’re going to have to beat two good teams to get there. Which two and at which point in the tournament doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.”

Scouting reports say Walla Walla and Pasco, both big, physical, hard-hitting teams, could break into the top three while any four of the GSL representatives could come home to play again.

Hankins steps down

The Greater Spokane League lost one of its most popular and enthusiastic coaches this week when Sharon Hankins resigned her Rogers volleyball position.

Hankins broke the news to her players on Oct. 24, when Rogers (2-14) ended its season with a loss to Mead. She told her fellow GSL coaches during last week’s meeting to select all-league teams.

“I had kind of semi-retired when I moved to Spokane (from Ritzville) seven years ago,” Hankins said. “I told them at Rogers that I would give them three years and see where it went, and I gave them six (years).”

Hankins’ first two Pirates teams finished 0-16. Her next four showed improvement, but last year’s 3-13 mark was her best in the tough GSL. Rogers was 8-88 during Hankins’ tenure.

Hankins coached volleyball for 17 years in

Ritzville. Her Broncos won the State B title in 1979 and finished second in ‘80.

“I’ve really enjoyed the kids and had a great time,” said Hankins, who will continue as a counselor at Rogers.

Tragic loss

Mike Raynor said St. Michael’s Academy lost “the heart and soul” of its basketball and baseball teams when senior Patrick Schindler died in an automobile accident Oct. 25 on Bigelow Gulch Road.

Schindler, the junior varsity basketball team’s most valuable player last year, was set to start or be the first person off the bench for the Warriors’ varsity this year.

Schindler, who grew nearly 6 inches during the last year, was also projected as the starting second baseman and No. 2 hitter for the St. Michael’s baseball team.

“He was a happy-go-lucky kid, but when it came to getting down to business he could do that,” said Raynor, the school’s JV basketball and varsity baseball coach.

Schindler attended St. Michael’s since kindergarten. He was involved in choir, the yearbook and glee club. Raynor said Schindler attended a college fair the day of the accident. He intended to enroll at a small Midwestern college.

New territory

The Colton volleyball squad became the school’s first girls team to advance to a district tournament since at least 1989.

Colton coach Connie Hoyle said her players didn’t know whether to be nervous or excited about playing after the regular season.

They were probably a little bit of both. The second-seeded Wildcats didn’t advance after Saturday’s pool play in Walla Walla.

Traffic jam on info super highway

Computers may have dragged area cross country runners onto the information superhighway, but the machines couldn’t keep up with the humans.

Six girls and boys races were run between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. during district and regional meets last Saturday.

A computer glitch resulted in another three-hour wait before coaches and media got race results.

Meet director Jay Rydell said a program borrowed from state meet director John Crawford of Pasco should speed results next year.

, DataTimes