Ready to serve again

Julie Yearout is back in the game.

After six seasons as head volleyball coach and a long run as an assistant coach under Buzzy Welch at Lewis and Clark High School, Yearout stepped down in 2009 after winning the 2008 state Class 4A state championship. Her final four teams earned trophies at the state tournament and her final three reached the state championship game.

“I wanted to take a break,” the first-year head coach at West Valley explained. “I took a year off. Last year I helped out at Liberty.”

After leading the Eagles to three state trophies in four years, including a third-place trophy a year ago, coach Drew Wendle decided to step down.

“I just felt that it was time for my own kids to come first for a while,” he said.

Wendle made his decision right after the season ended, allowing West Valley to be well into its interview process before a slew of Greater Spokane League coaching positions opened up.

“We were fortunate to have a head start on that whole process,” athletic director Wayne McKnight said. “We’ve been fortunate in the coaches we’ve been able to attract. I think coaches realize that this is a good environment to work in.”

In all, four GSL schools have new head coaches, including Chris Kosty, who takes over from Chad Coupland at Central Valley after going 59-18 as head coach at North Idaho College. Longtime Freeman volleyball coach Kenny Davis takes over this season as head coach at Ferris.

West Valley was the choice for her, Yearout explained.

“I think Drew did a great job with this program,” she said. “I know what it feels like to leave a program and just hope that someone will take it over who cares as much about it as you do.

“I’ve been friends with coaches who are here at West Valley. I went to Shadle Park with Jamie Nilles. I’ve heard them talk about what a great place this is to be and it’s the one program I wanted to be part of. The coaches here all support one another and I like that.”

That atmosphere appealed to Yearout and her coaching philosophy.

“I probably go a little against the grain because I like working with multisport athletes,” she said. “I know the conventional wisdom is that, to be successful in volleyball you have to play a lot of club volleyball. I would rather have a great athlete and teach them to play volleyball.

“I’ve coached a club team that was made up of players who played other sports and we were remarkably successful. We’d practice once a week and we’d schedule practice around their other schedules.”

At West Valley the coaching staff has a long-standing track record of supporting multisport athletes and encouraging them to play other sports.

Yearout was able to bring with her a former assistant from Lewis and Clark and another from Liberty. And she’s added Kari Chavez, a former assistant coach at Gonzaga University and Division I setter at Central Washington.

“I’d worked with Kari with a club team and I had talked to her about working with me,” Yearout said. “I had my assistants lined up before I applied for the job.

“She brings a whole new dynamic for the girls. When you’ve played at the fast pace of the college game, you tend to want to coach at that level.”

Yearout inherits a team that has plenty of talent, even after graduating four all-league players who were part of West Valley’s three most recent state trophies.

The Eagles graduated last year’s Great Northern League most valuable player Shaniqua Nilles, who now plays basketball at Gonzaga University, as well as last year’s All-GNL libero in Mallorie Schloesler. Also gone are second-team All-GNL middle hitter Hannah Love and outside hitter Leah Peterson.

That doesn’t mean the cupboard is bare. Far from it.

For starters, the team returns last year’s All-GNL first team setter in junior Aaliyah Ashley-Meek.

“Having Aaliyah there is big, no doubt,” Yearout said. “We have three girls who all started last year. And I think we have a pretty good idea of who will be in the rotation for us.

“The players who graduated have a legacy here. It’s now our job to build on that legacy.”

The immediate challenge is to find leaders, she said.

“I think with girls, there’s a natural tendency to defer to a senior,” Yearout said. “We only have two seniors on this team and one of them did not play last year. We need to figure out who our leaders will be.

“Talent wise, I think we will do well. We have the kind of talent that can get us back to the state tournament. We’ll just have to see who we can become.”