Hulls and Central Valley girls stay perfect with rout of University in Stinky Sneaker

Lacie Hull, pictured in a December game against Mead, scored 11 points Friday as Central Valley beat University.

Steve Christilaw, spokesman.com, January 19, 2018

When it comes to the Central Valley-University girls basketball portion of the annual Stinky Sneaker festivities, it’s most definitely a spirit game.

And not in a festive way.

The Central Valley defense can be the stuff of nightmares.

In front of a noisy, raucously enthusiastic crowd in the Spokane Arena, the Lady Bears stifled U-Hi in the first half, building a 39-6 lead that left the second two quarters everything but in doubt. In the end, University put on a spirited second half of its own to make the final score 62-35.

Lexie Hull scored 18 points to lead the CV offense and Lacie Hull added another 11, but it’s almost as an afterthought to a smothering defense.

“I texted the girls the other day and I told them that bad teams don’t play defense,” coach Freddie Rehkow said. “Good teams play defense sometimes. But great teams know it’s important to play defense all the time.

“You can have a bad day on offense. You can’t have a bad day playing defense. I tell the girls that if you lose a game 2-0, you’ve given up two points too many.”

It’s a blue-collar defense that scraps for loose balls and uses long arms to get a hand on a wide array of opponents’ shots – from the last-second 3-pointer from the wing as the shot clock winds down to the underhanded scoop underneath the basket. It anticipates where an offense wants to go and frequently gets there before the opponent.

Tuesday night it limited Shadle Park to just five points. For the game.

University is a good, young team with 10 wins overall and a 7-3 record in the GSL. The Titans came out to start the second half on a 7-2 run and eventually outscored the Bears 18-12 in the quarter and 29-23 for the half.

Rehkow shook his head at the thought of a second half that saw the Titans outscore CV 29-13.

“I think when you have a 30-point lead you kind of lose some of your intensity,” he said.

These Bears now are 16-0, 10-0 in Greater Spokane League games.

And they are more than that.

“Three years in and this group is now 70-1,” Rehkow said. “I don’t think we’ve peaked yet. I think we can still get better. If we keep going we have another 10 or 11 more games to see how good we can be.

“That’s what we talk about. When they lost a game last year they felt like they let everybody down. We talk about being as good as we can be. If that gets us a state championship so be it. If not, we’ll deal with it.”


Central Valley 57, Shadle Park 5:

spokesman.com, January 16, 2018

Lexie Hull scored 14 points and the Bears (15-0, 9-0) raced past the Highlanders (2-11, 1-6), who held the Highlanders to a single point over the first three quarters. The Bears have scored a combined 145 points in their last two league contests.