Eagles, Bears Revive Old Rivalry West Valley Boys Drop CV Bears 67-59
During team introductions before the West Valley-Central Valley boys basketball game last Friday, public address announcer Frank Dalke told spectators it had been nearly 10 years to the day since the schools last met.
Players on both teams ranged from 7 to 9 years of age when the Bears beat the Eagles 65-48 on Dec. 8, 1987, and were in no way aware of the significance of this renewal.
Once the Valley rivalry, the CV-WV fervor cooled considerably after University, the Central Valley School District’s second high school, opened in the fall of 1962.
Indeed, last weekend the Bears were thinking in broader terms.
They are currently in the midst of a three-game Greater Spokane League series that began Tuesday with a hot-shooting, tough defensive 59-35 win at Rogers, continues Friday against championship favorite Ferris and concludes Saturday at home.
The opponent in the third GSL game? None other than University, which displaced the Eagles as the object of CV’s attention 30-plus years ago.
Still, the Bears were facing rivals past and present within one week’s time.
West Valley and Central Valley, schools with storied basketball programs, began the long-standing rivalry in 1924-25, when they were the Valley’s two largest high schools.
The series played on through a succession of coaching and league changes until it ended with that game in 1987.
It was Joe Feist’s second year as head coach at WV.
“It was a mutual thing,” said former Bear coach Terry Irwin, who had coached Feist when both were at Gonzaga Prep. “They were not crazy about playing us and we were more interested in playing teams that (we’d play) in tournament.”
One of those teams, Richland, dropped CV from its pre-league schedule this year. That created last Friday’s schedule opening - and the opportunity to renew the CV-WV series.
The Eagle-Bear game, which had endured for nearly 60 years, was back, won by WV 67-59 in an entertaining reminder of the past.
It was WV’s first win over CV since 1984 and left the Bears with a 72-52 advantage. In 1956 the teams had broken even in 74 games.
Momentum swung to and fro, CV leading by eight points early in the second quarter, the Eagles rallying behind the hot shooting of Josh Sweet for a 31-29 halftime lead.
The Eagles led by six and trailed by four during the third quarter. They didn’t lead for good until Sweet got serious again midway through the a see-saw fourth quarter.
He finished with 31 points, but it was the inside play of Aaron Mortensen that sparked the Eagles.
Afterwards, both coaches agreed that it had been fun, although CV coach Rick Sloan lamented the 30 percent shooting by his team.
Sloan, who replaced Irwin as coach this year, was at the center of a heated CV-WV game in 1981. Two other coaches, CV’s Stan Chalich and WV’s Duane Ranniger, were at the respective helms then.
Sloan, a 1981 graduate, was brought back into the game, which CV led comfortably, to set a school scoring record.
But all that was in the past. The CV-WV game is one that, schedule permitting, could be played annually.
As WV athletic director Wayne McKnight, a 1969 Eagle grad, said afterwards on Friday, “maybe we can keep this around for awhile.”
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