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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Joining the GNL


The gym at West Valley High School sits empty with boarded up doors during construction. Next year, the school will leave the GSL and join the 2A Great Northern League. The students will be playing in a new, larger gym next year. 
 (Liz Kishimoto / The Spokesman-Review)
Steve Christilaw Correspondent

At West Valley High School, the idea of being part of a league has been a temporary thing.

Over the years the school has been a member of a number of leagues – some that no longer exist. Eagles teams have competed in several incarnations of both the Border League and Frontier League, neither of which remain.

For the past four years, West Valley has been a member of the Greater Spokane League.

“That doesn’t sound like a lot, but four years is the longest we’ve been in a league in quite a while,” West Valley athletic director Wayne McKnight said. “We’re so grateful to the Greater Spokane League for allowing us to come in and compete. They agreed to become a combined Class 3A/4A league. That’s pretty commonplace today, but when they agreed to do it, it wasn’t. I think the fact that you see other leagues across the state going to a two-tiered alignment is in no small part due to the success the GSL has had with it.”

Playing in the GSL meant competing with neighbors and built competitive rivalries. West Valley and East Valley were able to renew their old rivalry and bring back the Golden Throne basketball series and compete in the same league with neighbors Central Valley and University for the first time since those schools left the old Border League and joined the City League to become the GSL.

Still, the Eagles were a small Class 3A school competing against some of the biggest Class 4A schools in the state.

A new statewide realignment this past school year drops West Valley, along with Cheney and Clarkston, down from Class 3A to Class 2A.

The Eagles will begin play in the Class 2A Great Northern League for the 2006-07 school year.

“In a lot of ways, this reunites us with the old Frontier League,” McKnight said.

West Valley will now compete with Cheney, Clarkston, Colville, Deer Park, Medical Lake, Pullman and Riverside. Lakeside, which had been a member of the GNL, drops to Class 1A and joins the Northeast A League.

“For the first time since way back when I was coaching myself, we can look a kid in the eye and tell them that they have as good a shot at getting to state as anyone else,” McKnight said. “We’ve always said it, but I think now we can actually say it with a clear conscience.”

During its stay in the GSL, West Valley was the league’s smallest school. In sports like football, wrestling and track and field – sports that rely heavily on turning out a large number of athletes – the Eagles always were placed at a disadvantage.

“Take football, for example,” McKnight said. “If we turned out 60 kids to play and we’re playing a team that has 120, we’re going to have a hard time competing. By the fourth quarter they’re going to have been able to sub four or five kids at a position and be fresher while we’re still playing our No. 1 or No. 2 kid at every position.

“Same thing with track. If we can only put two kids out there in an event and a bigger school can start four or five, they’re going to score that many more points. It’s a numbers game.”

McKnight has been working to fill holes in the football schedule for the fall.

Considering the size of the GSL, teams needed only to find one outside opponent for a nonleague game per football season. Next year West Valley will play only seven league games, leaving three open slots awaiting opponents.

“It’s a bit more of a challenge,” McKnight said. “It means going out of the area, which is something we haven’t had to do in recent years. This year we’re going to go play at West Valley-Yakima and we’re going to play a road game at Stevenson, Mont.

“People go, ‘Wow, you have to go all the way to Montana?’ I have to remind them that Montana is closer for us than Yakima is.”

There is an added travel cost involved in joining a league that covers a larger geographical area. However, McKnight said, that will be minimal.

“We’ve always had that one trip down to Clarkston every year, and we’re still going to have that,” he said. “What we have to add in now is a trip to Pullman and a trip to Colville. It shouldn’t be that bad.”

The advantage of dropping down a classification is simple: West Valley will now field teams against similar-sized schools. On an equal playing field, the Eagles should find themselves more consistently competitive.

Just don’t expect teams to automatically dominate just because they’ve been in the GSL.

“I hear that from people – they figure we’re just going to go down there and win everything,” McKnight laughed. “That’s just not going to be the case.”

Come fall, the Eagles should find much more success in football. Coach Craig Whitney has a good team returning and should build on what the team accomplished last year – it’s most successful year in the GSL.

Cross country coach Jim McLachlan returns for his final season and his boys team could challenge for his first boys state championship. Volleyball, too, will benefit by not having to face some of the best Class 4A teams in the state night in and night out.