Stags athletic director: ‘We’re in a really good spot’

Deer Park is comfortable, thank you very much.

The Stags just won their first district boys basketball championship and are in Yakima for the state Class 1A tournament. Deer Park wrestlers came home with a trophy from the state wrestling tournament for the 13th straight time.

“We feel we’re in a really good spot,” athletics director Chris Snyder said. “We’re competitive. We’re by no means dominating in sports across the league, but we’re competitive at this level. Most importantly, our kids are having a good experience. We just have a healthy culture up here.”

Basketball coach Chad Hand was a Deer Park assistant in 2010, the last time the Stags reached a state tournament.

This year, he said, his team grew into being a state-caliber squad.

“To be honest our early season schedule wasn’t that tough,” he said. “But it let us get some wins under our belts and learn how to win basketball games. Our confidence grew as we went along.”

The Stags (20-3) rolled to 17 straight wins to start the season and they arrive in Yakima for the state tournament No. 8 in the state’s RPI rankings.

Deer Park knocked off Newport 57-45 to win the district title, but lost its regional playoff to LaCenter 63-46.

“That was a game where we played really well in the first half and really struggled in the second,” Hand said. “That’s the first time we’ve faced that kind of adversity all season. Now we have to put that behind us and move on.”

Junior Jobi Gelber scored 31 points and grabbed 14 rebounds in the district title game against the Grizzlies. He had 34 points and knocked down five 3-pointers in a late-season loss to Lakeside.

“Jobi has done a great job these last three or four games, but we’re far from being a one-man team,” Hand said. “We have three or four kids who can fill it up for us in any game.”

The challenge at Deer Park is an enrollment that lives right on the cusp. A few students here, a few there and the Stags go from being a big Class 1A school to being a small Class 2A program.

Deer Park has, in recent years, been a member of the Class 2A Great Northern League. It’s currently in the Class 1A Northeast A League. It literally swings from being a little fish in a big lake to being the lunker lurking the depths of a small pond.

“There’s definitely a big challenge in that,” Snyder said. “Some of the biggest challenges enrollment and where you fall on that classification phase presents is in the team sports. That’s where you see a lot more of a struggle.

“Sports like wrestling, cross country and track are different. You don’t advance a whole team in the postseason in those sports. It’s individuals advancing. It’s about the athletes more than the team.

“Deer Park is unique in that. Football was able to win at 2A when we had a good year. That tends to be a bit rare. Where we are at 1A we made a good run at it a few years back and placed third at state.”

With the 2020 reclassification looming, Deer Park again finds itself on the cusp. Initial projections show it with enough students to push it over the line into Class 2A.

But there is also a new twist that will be taken into account when the numbers are calculated over the next year.

The WIAA adopted a metric that allows a school to reduce its enrollment, for athletic purposes, by the number of free and reduced-price lunches it provides.

“That’s going to be a big factor,” Snyder said. “We’re close, but we’ve been close every year. That’s nothing new. Our free and reduced rate will be a factor and it could help us, possibly being able to stay down at the 1A level.

“Have to track every month and see where our enrollment takes us. We go where our enrollment is. But if it were done today, we’d still be at Class 1A.”