Bonding under the hoop

It all started with a basketball and an elementary school playground.

Jenni White and Sammie Grater are the best of friends. They laugh together, they play together. If you see one, you generally find the other. At East Valley High School, they take all of their classes together and lunch together.

“We’re always laughing and joking with one another,” White said. “We’ve been known to get in trouble in class once in a while.”

Not so much trouble that anyone would think of separating them, mind you. You just can’t do it – this friendship is tighter than the twine on a new basketball net.

This winter that unbreakable bond is the centerpiece of East Valley’s girls basketball squad. White and Grater are two of just three seniors on a varsity squad that features five sophomores and a freshman.

“We have a pretty young team this year,” White said. “I think Sammie and I being such great friends helps. We’ve tried to bring the rest of the team into that relationship and I think it’s helped bring everyone together.”

Grater was a fifth-grader at Trentwood Elementary when she decided to check out the basketball skills of the new kid on the block.

“We played a lot of basketball on the playground,” Grater said. “I had to check out her game.”

The new kid had plenty of game.

“She really showed me some things,” Grater said. “She’s been showing me stuff ever since because she’s got great skills – she’s an amazing player at whatever she does.

“We played every school sport together. Jenni is such a great basketball player that people forget that she’s a great golfer and a great soccer player, too.”

The teammates have made each step of their careers together. Teammates in middle school, as freshmen they both played on the East Valley junior varsity. As sophomores they both were promoted to varsity, where they came off the bench for the Knights. As juniors, they each moved into the starting lineup.

“We’ve played so much basketball together that it’s almost as if we can read each other’s mind,” White said. “I know when Sammie wants the ball and I know when she doesn’t.”

“It’s like you don’t even have to think about it, you just know,” Grater said. “It’s great to be able to play like that with someone you know so well.”

That kind of bond, each insists, is what they hope to bring to the rest of the young Knights.

“When you’re a young player you’re always afraid to make a mistake,” White said. “You hesitate. You’re afraid you aren’t going to fit in. We’ve been there and we know what that’s like.”

To help the team overcome that initial reluctance, the team began holding team dinners, which have helped.

The biggest help, though, was winning. After opening the season with seven straight losses, the team finally broke into the win column in the final game of the 2009 calendar year, knocking off Lake Roosevelt at a holiday tournament in Cheney, 52-42.

“Winning our first game was huge for us,” White said. “I think that made everyone relax and I think it brought everyone together.”

The Knights followed up that win with their first victory in Greater Spokane League play, downing Rogers 54-22 in the first game of 2010.

“I think that game really was good for us because our team defense was good,” Grater said. “We’ve been really concentrating on our man-to-man defense and it showed.”

In the team’s two victories, only one player reached double figures – junior Kimmie Thatcher tossed in 11 points against Rogers.

Through the first seven games, the Knights relied on White to provide the team’s offense. The senior point guard scored 74 points in the team’s first four games, including a season-high 22 against Lewis and Clark.

Against Lake Roosevelt, East Valley had three players with nine points while White needed to add just six.

“We played Mt. Spokane in the first game of that Cheney tournament and we were able to stay with them,” Grater said. “That game, I think, gives us a lot of confidence going into our next game (played Friday) with them and for the rest of the season.

“We’re getting better. And we know we can play with these (Class 3A) teams and we can find a way to beat them.”

It’s the kind of thing that friends do together, White and Grater said. They come together and they work together. And they have fun in the process.

Still, there is a bittersweet element to this basketball season. This is the year the basketball bond breaks, Grater said. At least the formal one.

“This is my last year; I’m done after this season,” she said. “I believe Jenni will go on and play basketball in college. She’s certainly good enough to do that.”

No one will cheer harder for White than Grater.

“Wherever Jenni plays, I’m going to be right there in the stands as often as I can, cheering her on,” she promised. “I’m not sure we’ll go to the same school. But I will always be her biggest fan.”