Work pays off for Eagles volleyball

Jessica Gudgel epitomizes the libero, a back row specialist who can spend an entire match there except when it comes time to serve.

West Valley’s 5-foot-4 senior dynamo, dressed in black while her teammates donned white uniforms with orange numbers, seemingly was everywhere during the Eagles five-game victory over East Valley that sent her and the Eagles to their third straight 3A regional tournament. WV is the No. 2 seed from the GSL and will play Mid-Valley No. 3 next Saturday at the regional tournament in Cheney. EV that also lost to NC, is the No. 3 seed to regional and will play Mid-Valley No. 2.

Gudgel dug up the best shots the Knights could give, allowing her teammates scoring opportunities that enabled them to prevail in the Thursday night barn-burner.

“We worked real hard at practice,” said Gudgel who refused to take credit for her remarkable night. “Everything we’ve done paid off tonight. I’m excited.”

It will be EV’s first postseason appearance since last they were a 3A classification school in 1998.

The Valley teams became embroiled in a marathon match that lasted more than two hours and had more twists and turns than a mountain highway. WV led 12-3 in the first game of their five-game match, but the Knights rallied, outscoring the Eagles 9-2 on the hitting and serving of Rachel Bonertz for a 26-24 win.

WV went up 13-7 in game two, led by Mel Dossey, Kayla Kazemba and Hannah Urie, but needed to break a 23-all tie to win 25-23.

The teams traded 25-21 decisions, the Eagles winning first, the Knights next, though neither managed more than four points in a row at any point in either game.

And the match deciding the fifth game was tied 11-11 before Chelsea Hammerstein served out for WV for a 15-11 decision.

Bonertz, Angie Smith and McKenzie Carter led EV’s offense.

Bears new home

Central Valley completed the Greater Spokane League cross country season on Wednesday, its first at its new home location.

The Bears moved from sharing the Liberty Lake County Park course with University to Mirabeau this year.

”Gene Blankenship, Bob Barbero and I ran this way from Sullivan Park on Sundays,” said boys coach John Preston of the discovery. “It was closer to CV which is nice and it’s nice to have our own course.”

The course is repetitive, running on the grass through the park and up through the hill behind it several times, which provides some degree of difficulty. But it offers one other venue for GSL runners to test themselves.

“We have to decide if we want to come back,” said Preston. “But I like it and think we will keep it.”

Next up for runners is next weekend’s regional meet in Richland that qualifies 4A and 3A teams and individuals to state.

East Valley boys positioned themselves for a state 3A return by completing their best-ever GSL season.

The Knights finished 8-5 and in a three-way tie for fifth place in the league by decisively beating Mt. Spokane during a three-team sweep at Cheney’s Salnave Park.

Junior Nick Atwood continued to stamp himself one of the GSL’s best with 20-second victory. The Knights had five finishers among the race’s top eight.

Keith Holt, Tyler Thatcher and Matt Tonani placed third through fifth, and Max Dollfe completed scoring in the 20-35, 16-41, 15-44 wins over the Wildcats, Cheney and Clarkston.

EV and the state’s top-ranked 3A team North Central will contend for the region’s two state berths against Mid-Valley schools.

University’s boys (6-7), CV (5-8) and West Valley (4-9) finished eighth through 10th in league.

University’s girls (8-5) were part of a three-team tie for fifth place with North Central and Shadle Park, losing a heart-breaker, 27-28 to the Indians at Plantes Ferry Park.

CV and EV (both 4-9) tied for 10th and West Valley finished 1-12.

Jo E. Mayer won for the Knights in Cheney – her final race before regionals.

The Bears were hurt this year by the absence of junior Anna Layman, out for the year with injury.

She finished 13th and 18th at state her first two seasons, but developed plantar fasciitis, the inflammation of the tough tissue band on the bottom of the foot.

“It started hurting after the first GSL meet,” Layman said.

She thought it had healed enough to compete at the Bullpup Invitational, two weekends ago, but the condition flared up early in the race.

“My goals were washed away quickly,” said Layman. “It’s a bummer.”

Middle school all-league

A pair of Centennial runners led the way in a close Valley Middle School cross country championship race that left their team atop a competitive boys eighth-grade league.

Michael White and Justin Degenhardt timed 5:38 and 5:44 to finish one-two as five runners broke six minutes in the title race. Michael Aunan and Michael Owens from Horizon in third and fifth, and Blake Nordhagen from North Pines in fourth were the others.

During the year there were five tied team races involving six teams. Centennial and Horizon were involved in two and North Pines in three, all three schools went undefeated in their other contests.

But Centennial scored 31 points, Horizon 35 and North Pines 41 in the championship meet to sort out the final standings.

Evergreen beat North Pines 25-30 for the seventh-grade title. The two unbeaten teams had tied during regular season. Cubs John Wojtech and Dustyn Dauterman went one-two individually.

Bowdish’s eighth-graders easily repeated as unbeaten girls champs with low score 22 points. Maygen Evenson, Stevie Gildehaus and Hayley Stephens placed third through fifth, close behind Mountain View champion Elise Thatcher, and Evergreen runnerup Breanna Barsten.

Mountain View also had the individual seventh-grade winner, Hannah Smith, but the Lancers finished behind meet champion Greenacres 38-57.