Ravet Back, This Time With Girls

After guiding his Kittitas boys team to the State B basketball tournament the past two seasons, Tim Ravet is back - this time as coach of the Kittitas girls.

It was a job change spawned when Ravet abruptly changed his mind about leaving coaching to devote all his time to the tarpaulin manufacturing company he operates with his father.

And it’s a job change he seems to be enjoying immensely as he prepares his 21-4 Coyotes, a 46-26 first-round winner over Mossyrock Wednesday morning, for tonight’s 5 p.m. quarterfinals showdown against defending State B champion St. John-Endicott (22-5).

“They’re a good group,” said Ravet, who relinquished the boys program during the summer, but returned to take over the girls team just prior to the start of the season when former coach Todd Wilson moved to Cle Elum. “They’re good kids and they work hard, which makes it worth it to be back coaching again. But I can’t take much credit for what’s happened.

“I don’t think you can build a program in three months. You’ve got to give the credit to the guy who coached them last year, and the parents who have taken the time to get them to AAU games.”

Ravet’s boys finished fourth at last year’s tournament after losing their first two in 1995. He said he decided to quit coaching because of the hassles involved with not being on staff at the high school.

“To have a good program, you’ve got to have somebody in the school who can kind of keep track of the kids,” he explained, adding that his assistant, Scott Wilson, had done that while teaching English and Spanish.

So when Wilson decided to move over and assist with the girls program, Ravet felt he needed to step aside as the boys coach.

But when Todd Wilson left, he saw an opportunity to be reunited with his former assistant by taking the girls job.

“I started missing coaching right away,” admitted Ravet, a Kittitas graduate, who played on the 1989 Coyotes team that finished third at state and the 1988 team that went 0-2. “I always wanted to coach the girls anyway, because you don’t have as many grade problems and attitudes.

“Not that the boys have bad attitudes, but it just seems to take a lot more - when (no coach) is at the school - to keep track of them.”

New seating assignments

First-round victories by Reardan’s girls and boys forced tournament officials to alter seating assignments for fans at today’s 8 p.m. quarterfinals.

Because the two Indians teams are scheduled to compete simultaneously, Reardan fans will be seated in Sections 115, 116 and 117 so they can view action on both courts.

Fans from Waterville, the Indians boys’ opponent, will be seated in Section 102, and fans from Pateros, the girls’ foe, will be in Section 105.

WIAA rules prohibit changing game times of quarterfinal matchups, but if both Reardan teams advance to Friday’s semifinals, where they could again play at the same time, one of those 8:30 p.m. games will be moved to 7.

Flu bug bites ref

Referee Jeff Parks, a member of the Chelan County Officials Association, abruptly left the Wednesday night Reardan-Toutle Lake game midway through the second quarter with the flu.

His status for the remainder of week is uncertain, according to tournament officials.

3-pointers

Breanna Schmick, the sister of former St. John-Endicott standout Andee Schmick, who is among the Top 10 all-time State B scorers, is one of five freshmen on the Eagles’ roster… . If Schmick’s teammate, Tricia Lamb, plays four games this week and matches her regular-season average of 23 points per game, she will become the tournament’s No. 2 career scoring leader behind Davenport’s Jennifer Stinson.

, DataTimes