Packed with Stars: Longtime coach Ron Adams offers his picks for the best of the best of GSL girls basketball

Ron Adams created the Spokane Stars girls basketball club program in 1980 and it’s still going strong.

Best known for taking some of the best players in Spokane and the surrounding area to national tournaments, the Stars organization also runs Sunday skills clinics for school-age players, often with the help of area standouts who live in the area and the area college programs each bring their players in once each year.

With that experience, which includes a brief time as a co-coach with the late Jack Blair at Central Valley, we asked Adams to give us his all-time Greater Spokane League team.

It was a tough choice because around 75 GSL girls he coached signed with Division I schools, about two dozen with Power Five programs.

After Blair’s death, Adams also created the Jack Blair Memorial All-Star Game for GSL players as well as players from the surrounding area, including Idaho. Those teams encompassed players from The Spokesman-Review circulation area.

While we have been focusing on GSL girls during this series, we want to tip our hat to the surrounding area, which has produced numerous state champions at all level and an abundance of talent. A rough count of those who have gone through the Stars’ program and participated in the All-Star game shows 15 players who went to Power Five schools, though they may have played a different sport, and another four dozen who attended D-I schools.

Adams’ All-GSL team

•Angie Bjorklund, U-Hi 2007, Tennessee

•Lexie Hull, CV 2018, Stanford

•Lacie Hull, CV 2018, Stanford

•Briann January, LC 2005, Arizona State

•Katelan Redmon, LC 2007, Washington/Gonzaga

•Jazmine Redmon, Mead, Gonzaga

•Emily Westerberg, CV 2003, Arizona State

•Otiona Gildon, Gonzaga Prep 2015, Oregon

•Stacy Clinesmith, Mead 2006, Santa Barbara

•Heather Bowman, LC, 2006, Gonzaga

Honorable mention

•Madison Hovren, CV 2015, West Point

•Regan Freuen, Mead 2004, Stanford

•Lisa Oriard, Gonzaga Prep 1984, Washington

• Brittany Kennedy, LC 2008, Oregon State/Florida Gulf Coast

•Tia Presley, Gonzaga Prep 2011, Washington State

Area Power Five players

•Andrea Lloyd, Moscow, Texas

•Aileen McManus, Reardan, Washington

•Darla Williamson, Washington State

•Darci Wellsandt, Ritzville, Washington State

•Amy Nelson, Colville, California

•Amy Sanholtz, Pullman, Washington State

•Kari Hutchinson, St. George’s, Notre Dame

•Heather Owen, Moscow, Stanford

•Jennifer Stinson, Davenport, Washington State

•Tricia Lamb, St. John-Endicott, Washington State

•Jen Barcus, Lakeside, Washington State

•Aubree Johnson, Post Falls, Arizona State

•Brooke Bemis, Lake City, Washington State

•Jamie Weisner, Clarkston, Oregon State

•Chandler Smith, Brewster, Nebraska/Gonzaga