Rivalry Rekindled For Eagles, Bears

West Valley and Central Valley renew basketball acquaintances after and eight-year hiatus Friday night, when the Eagles host the Bears.

The game is part of the continuation of non-league basketball play for area schools, which are entering the second week of the season.

CV and WV were former rivals as members of the old City League, to which both belonged until 1968, and the Border League, in which they played through 1973. The two schools haven’t played each other in basketball since 1988.

An opportunity occurred when Richland dropped CV from its schedule.

Friday’s game will feature teams who were 1-1 after Tuesday night victories.

The Eagles rebounded from a 74-61 season-opening loss to Shadle Park to beat Mead 58-56 on Jade Cardwell’s buzzer-beating three. CV, which lost to Kamiakin 76-66 in Kennewick, beat Coeur d’Alene 76-70 at home as Ryan Smith scored 29 points.

The Kamiakin game marked Rick Sloan’s head coaching debut.

“It was fine,” the new CV coach said. “The nice thing about the Big Nine is they give you a little bigger coach’s box (to stand in). I was up a little bit.”

Sloan said no one is happy with a loss, but that his players gave good effort.

“We were in the game for 3 quarters,” he said. “Then they got a couple buckets in transition and a couple key putbacks.”

He lauded the play of junior Marc Hinckley, who defended well against a 6-foot-7 player and scored 15 points.

“He played big for us,” said Sloan.

West Valley was beaten to rebounds and struggled at times against Shadle’s quicker defenders, suffering 20 turnovers.

“We need to improve defensively and do a better job on the boards,” said coach Joe Feist.

But they were still in the game at 67-61 with a minute to go, thanks to a strong second half by senior point guard Cardwell.

Shut out in the first half, he scored 16 points to share honors with Vinnie Pecht. Josh Sweet scored 15, 12 in the first quarter.

“I don’t know if we were sluggish, our style is different than people are accustomed to,” said Feist. “But we didn’t compete as hard as WV teams in the past.”

Newcomers show Knight stuff

Thanks to a trio of newcomers, East Valley’s wrestling team finished tied for third with University High last weekend at the Deer Park Invitational.

Deer Park is the first major gathering of area wrestlers and included five Greater Spokane League schools.

The Knights finished ahead of all but meet champion Gonzaga Prep.

New EV wrestler Chris Duncan, who was last year’s state 178-pound runnerup at Richland, won the 168-pound championship.

Selah transfer Rob Gillespie and Rogers transfer Tristan Beeman were second at 178 and 190, respectively.

Placing third for the Knights were Quinton Chapman at 135, Joe Adamson at 129, Justin Walker at 122 and Kevin Woolf at 115.

University’s Sam Butler beat Gillespie 13-4 for the 178-pound title and Jared Osborn won at 115 pounds.

The Knights also had third places from Gordon Bash at 108, Ed Pospisil at 215.

A pair of Gonzaga Prep Valleyites, Chris Montgomery at 108 pounds and Nick Bliss at 148, helped the Bullpups win the invitational with championships in their respective weight classes.

Friday and Saturday wrestlers move to Central Valley’s Inland Empire Classic.

Coach schedules self a win

A year ago Steve Altmeyer was athletic director at Northwest Christian School.

Now he is basketball coach at Valley Christian.

“I scheduled my own first game, against Northwest Christian,” he said.

It was a pretty sage job of scheduling by an outgoing A.D. for the Panthers’ incoming coach.

Valley Christian beat the Crusaders 60-31. And they backed that with a victory over Class A Freeman, Altmeyer’s alma mater.

Libby Smith wins meet

Lilac City club gymnast Libby Smith, 12, won the Level-8 all-around competition of the Washington State Judge’s Open meet at Seattle Pacific University.

Smith won uneven bars and finished second on vault, balance beam and floor exercise in her age group and was recognized for scoring the highest all-around points among all level 8 competitors.

Amber Baines was first on balance beam. Leah Borg finished third on bars, fourth on vault and all-around.

Krista Hinshaw was second on bars, third on vault and all-around. Stephanie Bass finished second on balance beam, third on vault and floor exercise.

Coaches for the team are Missy Freigang, Stoyan Katzarski and Colleen VanZee.

, DataTimes