On most nights, Central Valley’s second five is probably as good, if not better, than many of the other Greater Spokane League’s first teams.
What’s the old saying? It’s not bragging if you can back it up?
“In recent years it’s been like that,” CV senior wing Teammate said. “The other teams in the GSL maybe aren’t as strong as our bench players, or in some cases our JV players.”
Case in point: a league- and season-opening 63-18 win over Mead on Tuesday, including 26 points from 2016-17 Gatorade girls state player of the year Lexie Hull.
Still, CV’s veteran coach Freddie Rehkow doesn’t think his team deserves to be ranked first in state at this point, citing that they didn’t finish last season atop the chart.
“Honestly, I don’t think we should be No. 1,” Rehkow said. “At this point, we gotta earn that No. 1.”
Teammate wasn’t sure she agreed with her coach’s logic.
“(Coach) doesn’t think we deserve to be No. 1,” she said. “He knows we’re good, but we didn’t get first last year so why should we be (this year)?
“People know that we’re good so, why not put us No. 1? I kind of feel we should be No. 1. But again, we have to prove it.”
That chip on the collective shoulder of the Bears might stem from falling 56-55 in a State 4A quarterfinal to Bellarmine Prep last season – which ended a 52-game winning streak. CV won the state title in 2016 and is 54-1 over the past two seasons.
“We lost one game. To lose where we did, absolutely disappointing,” Rehkow said. “Not disappointed in the team or the season, but just disappointed that for one night we didn’t play our very best and that we didn’t coach our very best and that we came up short.”
So is redemption the theme for the new season?
“I think it’s more making sure that type of game doesn’t happen again,” senior 6-foot-2 forward Lexie Hull said, referring specifically to the single loss. “Preparing so that one game doesn’t determine how our season finishes.”
Twin sister Lacie concurred.
“We want to win the state championship, come back better than ever and to prove we shouldn’t have lost last year and that we’re a better team because of it,” she said.
This is a program that has bred excellence in recent years, so much so that Rehkow said turnout for the freshman team this year was low because of some girls being intimidated by the skill level and success.
“We’ve got kids that are working extremely hard (in the program), because they want to continue the success that the teams before them were having,” Rehkow said.
It might be an embarrassment of riches for the program, but it’s also a source of pride for the school and the players involved.
“It’s a lot of fun winning and having such high stakes every game,” Teammate said. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’re expected to win.’ We have to win. We want to keep our record. I think it’s just among us all, we want to keep winning because it’s a sense of pride for ourselves.”
“Our team is so well-rounded and diverse that the 10 people on our team are just as good as the majority of the teams we end up playing,” Lexie said. “Just being able to practice against them every day is helping us get better.”
The Hull twins are working to get better, of course, for college basketball. Stanford, and the Pac-12, to be exact. It hasn't been a secret – the two orally committed in 2016 and signed letters of intent in early November.
And that’s not all. There’s a third Division I player on the Bears, Teammate signed on to play for Idaho.
“It’s not that I get lost, but we just have so many great players that maybe one night I don’t score,” Teammate said. “But I was helping out on defense and doing a lot of other stuff. Points-wise, yeah, maybe I get lost sometime, but other ways I’m helping the team.”
Teammate acknowledges that it’s an unusual situation for one girls high school program to send three players to college basketball’s highest level.
“We’ve always been good players and we’ve played on the same team for a while,” she said of the twins. “Having three people that can go to a D-I school is super unique and unheard of. It’s great we get to practice against each other and play with each other on the court.”
“Sometimes people see the scores and they don’t understand that there is that gap between some of the athleticism that some of (the CV) kids have,” Rehkow said. “When you have three Division I athletes, they’re used to running. They’re used to playing. It’s hard to shut that competitiveness down.”
Rehkow thinks this might be the smartest team with which he’s been associated. The Hulls both boast 4.0 grade-point averages.
“The thing people don’t realize with this group is they are two-time academic state champions,” Rehkow said. “And their basketball IQ is ridiculous.
“I don’t think there’s a team around here – boys or girls – that picks up things faster.”
“Everyone on our team has such a high basketball IQ that if one’s not seeing something there are nine other people that are and can help that person,” Lacie said.
Whatever else they do this season will all be judged by whether they avenge last year’s single defeat and win a second state title in three years. That’s just the way it is for this program.
“Last year we wanted it and unfortunately we lost, but I think this year we want so badly to win state,” Teammate said. “That’s our goal.”
