Washington : Cunninghams welcome good news on knee

Mike Cunningham, a teacher at Mt. Spokane, calls his a regular Catholic family but is not one inclined to rely on miracles.

What happened to his son, Jarek, however, was nothing short of miraculous.

As you may recall, the Wildcats’ standout baseball shortstop scheduled to play in 2009 at Arizona State, tore up his knee during a fall league basketball game and was scheduled for surgery this month.

“I was coaching volleyball and on my way to a high school game when I heard about the injury,” Mike said. “It was the most sickening feeling I’ve had in a long time.”

They hoped it was a sprain before orthopedic surgeon Arnie Peterson indicated the worst. He called it the miserable triad – torn meniscus, MCL and ACL ligaments.

Things turned for the better.

When I first caught up with Jarek, at a Mt. Spokane playoff soccer match, he was strapped into one of those flexible casts and readying himself for the surgery that would prevent him from playing his senior season.

A few days later his dad called to tell me news of the outcome.

It was supposed to be a long surgery, but Dr. Peterson was out of the operating room within 30 minutes, Mike said.

“He puts his hands down and says, ‘It’s a miracle!’ He was flabbergasted and said he had goose bumps he was so happy,” Mike said.

The MCL had healed completely during the six-week wait for surgery and, in a rare circumstance, the ACL had reattached itself and didn’t need surgical repair. Only the meniscus needed some work.

“My parents told me in the recovery room,” Jarek said. “Oh, my gosh! It was amazing.”

But that isn’t the half of this story.

A few days before the procedure, Jarek was standing in a line with his mother in River Park Square when two “kind of hippie-looking girls” noticed his injury and asked if they could pray over it.

After a pause, he said OK, and they laid hands on his injured knee and uttered the prayer.

Thereafter, there came the surgical good news to the ecstatic family. Coincidence, perhaps, but you have to believe that the Cunningham family is now convinced that miracles do happen.

Jarek has been undergoing rehabilitation since the surgery a couple of weeks ago. He goes back to his doctor Friday to see if there’s a chance he might yet get to play baseball in his final high school season.

Six for six

Freddie Rehkow started his sixth season as a head girls basketball coach on Tuesday the same way he began the previous five – with a victory.

This 56-40 win was likely the biggest, coming as it did in his debut as Central Valley’s coach after resigning from East Valley last spring, and against formidable foe Shadle Park.

There is a caveat. The Highlanders were without 6-foot Washington State-bound post Lexie Pettersen, whose absence was significant. Pettersen has a groin injury and coach Chad Dezellem said he elected to rest her this week (Shadle has Friday’s bye) as a precaution.

“Lexie’s a big presence inside,” said Rehkow. “With her out, we didn’t have to worry about that so much and could focus on the perimeter players and try to keep them outside.”

The teams were tied after three quarters before CV went on a 19-3 fourth-quarter binge, sparked by Justine Bowman. She finished with 23 points.

“It feels so weird to be in here,” said Rehkow of his return to CV, where he got his coaching start as an assistant. “This is a big win.”

Deer Park Invite

Wrestlers shake the rust off with the annual Deer Park Invitational, traditionally the inaugural weekend tournament each season.

The host Stags were team champions last year over Riverside and Mead and have five state placers returned from last year’s 2A runner-up team. The meet begins Saturday at 9 a.m.