Shadle Still Sets The Pace Cooper, Schurra Help Anchor Highlanders In Bid For Gsl Title

Shadle Park’s fortunes were bound to change when Linda Sheridan and Michelle Etter rode off into the sunset at the same time.

Right?

Well, it depends on what one considers a change of fortunes.

Sheridan retired from coaching after her Etter-led Highlanders placed third at last year’s State 4A tournament.

Sheridan took with her the memories of 12 Greater Spokane League titles, five state championships and numerous top athletes such as Etter, the GSL’s 1998 most valuable player.

But Sheridan and Etter didn’t leave the cupboard empty.

Because of that, Shadle is 7-0 in the GSL and on target for its first league title since 1994.

Sheridan’s assistant coach and former player, Brooke Cooper, has taken over the program that put GSL volleyball on the map.

Etter took her game to Eastern Washington University, but left behind an understudy, senior middle hitter Katie Schurra.

“I wouldn’t have been all-city if it weren’t for Michelle, with the way she pushed me,” said Schurra, the GSL’s only returning first-team, all-league player.

“Katie was a surprise because Etter had overshadowed her a little bit,” Cooper said. “Katie caught people off-guard then, but this year she has just dominated.”

Schurra and Cooper said Shadle knew it had arrived after convincing wins over Mead and Lewis and Clark.

The GSL match of the year figures to be Oct. 19, when Ferris (6-0) travels to Shadle.

Both teams will be in action at Saturday’s Crossover Classic, the 40-team tournament that Sheridan helped create six years ago.

The beginning of this Highlanders season was awkward because Sheridan still teaches at Shadle. Her office has a clear view of the volleyball court.

At first, Sheridan would clear out when practices started. By last week, the ice had been broken to the extent that Sheridan offered pointers during practice.

“There’s not that much that has changed,” Schurra said. “She still can give us stuff we need. She can still be a kind of coach.”

Cooper runs Sheridan’s system, with an emphasis on team play and defense over offense.

Still, she had to wonder how the players would respond to a rookie coach replacing the woman after whom the gymnasium is now named.

“I spent all summer preparing for this,” Cooper said. “When they came in for camp at the end of July … and I put them altogether, there was no doubt in my mind that we were going to be a surprise.”

Schurra and outside hitter Krissy Forry have provided the power.

When she made the varsity team in 1996, Schurra became just the fourth Shadle freshman to do so. Schurra started as a right-side hitter, but switched to the middle in 1998 to take advantage of her left-handedness.

“All summer before my junior year I played middle to get ready,” said the 5-foot-10 Schurra.

“She’s just hard to read,” Cooper said. “You don’t see left-handed middles. When she was on the right side, she couldn’t hit the same angles.”

Schurra was a budding soccer player until middle school, when she decided volleyball was better.

Her older sister, Ann-Marie, is more interested in horses than athletics, but younger sister Elizabeth has gravitated toward sports.

The Schurras came from Michigan 11 years ago when Ron Schurra was hired as an administrator at Holy Family Hospital. He’s now looking for a new position, and the family lives in the Mead District.

Katie still writes to a friend from Michigan who lived across the street from her family.

Schurra said she’d prefer to attend a larger college than Whitworth, where Ann-Marie is a senior.

“I’m going to call Gonzaga and talk to their coach,” Cooper said. “She can definitely play at that level.”

Schurra would like one more shot at the state tournament. But the emotions will be different than last season, when Sheridan’s time was running down.

Before the third-place match with Puyallup, Sheridan played a song about living for the moment.

“Everyone just cried,” Schurra said. “Then we went out and played the best we’d ever played.”