Cheney Begins New Season With Two Returning Starters

Thu., Sept. 16, 1999

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Chris Derrick Staff Writer

OTHER VOLLEYBALL

Here’s the rundown for the volleyball season in smaller districts in South Spokane County and the West Plains:

Cheney

Third-year coach Pamela McKinzie begins with every team’s basic need: an experienced setter.

Senior Meghan Conrath has been McKinzie’s starting setter each year.

Another senior, left-side hitter Lani McLauchlin, is the Blackhawks’ other returning starter.

Cheney placed third in the four-team Frontier League last season with a 2-4 record. The Frontier has added Colville this year and dropped defending champion East Valley.

McKinzie is in her second stint as Blackhawks coach. Her 1987 team won the State AA title.

Medical Lake

Coach Debbie Spray begins her third year with three players who have started for her each season.

The veteran starters are senior outside hitter Marissa Greene, senior middle blocker Amanda Higgins and junior middle blocker Amy Green.

Greene fractured her wrist in a car accident last year.

The Cardinals placed seventh in the eight-team Great Northern League last year with a 2-12 record. The league is down to seven teams this season, with co-defending champion Colville’s move to the Frontier.

Liberty

Mark Weis begins his third year and his last chance to coach senior Tiffany Nadler, his stepdaughter.

Nadler, a third-year starter, was the only junior selected to last season’s all-Bi-County League team. She has been Weis’ stepdaughter since she was 1.

Three other Lancer seniors are top returners: Tiffanie Immel, Melissa Piersol and Erica Leslie. Immel had a serious sprained ankle a week before last year’s season started.

Weis expects to play 5-foot-10 freshman Elizabeth Smith in the middle.

Liberty has outgrown the Bi-County after last year’s 5-4 record and fifth-place finish. The school is now part of the Northeast A League.

“I don’t know much about it other than Colfax seems to be the team to beat,” Weis said.

Colfax has won the last five NEA titles and is undefeated in league since 1995.

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