CV Has It All Except The Title Bears Fill Favorite’s Role In Highly-Competitive Greater Spokane League

Central Valley has what all high school teams want - size, speed and experience.

More importantly, though, the Bears have some competition.

Central Valley is the favorite to win the Greater Spokane League but the Bears, and everyone else, expect the hounds to be hot on their heels.

“We have an awful tough league this year,” CV coach Rick Giampietri said. “I think some of these other teams are sandbagging themselves. You’ve got to step on the field and win a game. It’s not going to be handed to you.”

Two years ago - with size, speed and experience - the Bears roared through the GSL but were a little soft in the postseason, in part because they were rarely challenged. They lost their first-round playoff game to eventual finalist Kamiakin.

“The middle of the league is going to be much stronger,” Lewis and Clark coach John Hook said of CV’s GSL challengers.

Seven teams have a shot at the playoffs, which were expanded last year to include four GSL teams. They would all probably believe the same thing if only two were to advance.

Mead won the league title last year, but the school has been split from the junior class down because Mt. Spokane High School opened. Mike McLaughlin and his coaching staff went to the new school, which is playing an independent schedule, leaving Bob McCray to build a new staff and maintain a tradition that includes eight consecutive trips to the playoffs.

Shadle Park finished second in ‘96, with CV third and Gonzaga Prep fourth.

Shadle graduated 13 starters, but coach Mark Hester believes he has the players to plug in.

Gonzaga Prep has 10 starters back and the emotion of winning one for the Gipper, in this case Don Anderson, who announced before the season he was retiring after 36 years of coaching, 25 at Prep.

Lewis and Clark, Ferris and Rogers also think they have the players to make the playoffs, but LC needs linebackers, Ferris needs a quarterback and Rogers needs to build camaraderie.

With such a fine line among playoff contenders, there is little room for error.

“You have to play every team,” Hester said. “I’ve been here two years and it seems like once or twice a year there’s an upset. You better beat the teams you’re supposed to beat. You’ve just got to go out and play hard.”

For the survivors

The four teams that make it through the regular season have their work cut out for them.

Last year, in the expanded playoffs, the Big Nine won three of four matchups. In three of the four years prior to that, the Big Nine swept both playoff matchups.

“It’s no piece of cake coming out of this area, and it’s not going to be a piece of cake coming out of this league,” Giampietri said. “(The GSL) is going to be a better football league than it was a year ago.”

In the last three years, either Richland, Kamiakin or Walla Walla reached the state championship game, and all three are supposed to be loaded again. Kamiakin made it after finishing second in the league, and Richland was third last fall.

The Big Nine is really the Big Eight for football because Moses Lake dropped out when the state realignment was announced. Southridge, the new school in Kennewick, is doing the same thing as Mt. Spokane, playing an independent football schedule but joining the league for all other sports.

Wildcats only purr

The Mt. Spokane Wildcats probably won’t do a lot of growling this year, but McLaughlin is in for the long haul.

“We’ve had to simplify our package,” he said. “We don’t have as much offense and defense in as we had the last several years at this point. However, we might be executing fundamentals on both sides better, which is obviously a bridge to the future.”

The schedule is tough and includes three Albi games, Medical Lake in Week 2, Post Falls in the fifth week and Southridge in Week 8. The Wildcats open at Coeur d’Alene Friday night. They also play Montana power Hamilton on a Saturday afternoon of the third week and head to Pullman, the Great Northern League favorite, in Week 4. Week 6 has a game at Sandpoint, and the last week brings a trip to Tumwater to face another new school, Black Hills.

Quick kicks

The non-league games this year provide some new opponents and road trips for GSL teams. The first week, North Central goes to Sunnyside. The second week has Bellarmine Prep playing Gonzaga Prep at CV, followed by four consecutive games with Big Nine teams. Mead goes to Davis, Kennewick plays at CV, Pasco goes to University and Ferris is at Eisenhower. In Week 8, Lewis and Clark will head to the coast to play Tumwater. Rogers takes the last week off.

GSL season passes, good for all sports, will be sold at Albi Stadium this weekend. Passes, $45 for one person, $35 for a second adult and $5 for each school-age family member, will be available at both gates… . KTRW 970-AM will broadcast 18 GSL games and one for Mt. Spokane (against Post Falls).

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