‘It’s become a tradition’: Central Valley girls basketball embraces several championship eras

Judy Walters has seen it all – well, at least most of it.

Walters was an assistant coach with Dale Poffenroth when Central Valley played in five state girls basketball title games and won three championships over 17 years. After a three-year stint as head coach, she was again an assistant when Freddie Rehkow’s Bears won two more crowns in three finals in 11 years.

“Tradition,” Walters said. “It’s become a tradition.”

It’s hard to argue.

The 1985 Bears placed third in the formative years of the Greater Spokane League and won 17 more trophies and six championships in 19 appearances after that, both state-best marks in the state’s largest classification. Fourteen of CV’s 18 trophies are top four and the Bears have a record 56 wins under the bright lights at state.

Rehkow was an assistant coach with Poffenroth and came back to CV as head coach after coaching at East Valley.

“I’ve said for years, success breeds success,” Rehkow said. “I think any time you have tradition, you want to live up to that.”

The last trophy was rather unique. Felice Moore Orrell has the distinction of being the only player from the Greater Spokane League to win a girls basketball championship and duplicate that success as a coach, which happened in 2020.

“I think it’s the culture of CV basketball,” Orrell said. “I don’t know how to say it. It’s an unspoken thing, I suppose, but I just feel like there’s always been great kids coming through CV. I’m not sure exactly why that is.”

“My parents kept an eye on the program, so we got lots of updates from them,” said Kristin Hepton Spear, a junior on the first championship team in 1993. “It’s cool that it’s been such a successful program. It’s really neat to say I was part of that.”

The only trophy Walters missed was the last one, since she retired to Arizona.

“I think we’ve been blessed with good kids,” she said, pointing out that often the most talented players were the hardest workers. “They see that and they want to excel because the ones before them set that example. They work hard. Some of them have God-given talent, but they worked hard to get where they’re at.”

Good talent is an understatement. Every team that won a trophy had multiple players who continued their careers at various collegiate levels.

They all combined to make Central Valley the gold standard among large-school basketball programs.

Hepton era

That era gets its name because Courtney and Kristin Hepton are the only sister tandem to be named GSL MVPs, although they both shared the honor with Mead stars. Courtney was MVP in 1992 (with Colleen Flanigan) when she averaged 18.7 points, Kristin in 1994 (with Regan Freuen) when she averaged 18.6.

Before going 29-0 in 1993, the Bears placed third once and fourth twice.

Most people associated with the program think the 1992 teams was the best – before injuries at state contributed to a fourth-place finish – but the following season’s loaded roster wouldn’t be denied.

The Bears had three games decided by less than 10 points – two against Kamiakin – before beating Snohomish 44-35 in the championship.

“The ’93 team was really special,” Walters said. “They got along pretty well. Chemistry is huge with girls and they had pretty good chemistry. And we were big.”

“There were six girls that played on a Division-I team from that team,” Spear said. “That’s a lot of talent … and I think we all got along. You don’t have to have the most talent to win if you have good chemistry.”

CV returned to state in 1994 but didn’t place.

“I remember thinking this was going to be a good ride with them,” Poffenroth said of those five years, “but you didn’t quite know that it was going to turn into a regular occurrence.”

But it did.

Westerberg era

The Bears went to state eight consecutive years beginning with an unexpected appearance in the title game in 1997. But the 2001-03 teams were the heyday, led by Emily Westerberg Love, that placed first, first and second in her three years.

The Bears were 27-2 when Westerberg was a sophomore in 2001. They lost once at district and badly to Kennewick in the regional title game but had four double-figure wins at state. They beat Redmond, which had upset Kennewick in the semifinals, 71-48 in the final.

The 2002 team finished 29-0, with the closest winning margin six points. The nine postseason wins were all by double figures.

“They set us up for success,” Love said of her learning years. “They farmed us out as young players and we established relationships with the girls we were going to play with in high school. … You went to CV summer camp and started to learn their offense and their defense and strategy and you got to know (the coaches).

“We just connected on a personal level.”

The winning streak reached 56 and ended with a loss to Kennewick at regional in 2003. State was a lot tougher. An overtime win in the second round was followed by a physical battle in the semifinals before Prairie won 44=39 in the championship, the lowest point total in Westerberg’s time.

“They were really special. They made me laugh every day,” Walters said of those three years. “Some days they almost came to blows, but the whole group of them played so hard, played so well together, so skilled.”

Though Poffenroth appreciates the trophies and great players he had, it’s surprising what his best memories are.

“The players who accepted their role, gave everything they could, did everything to make things go, those are the type of kids who made or broke the team,” said Poffenroth, who finished his successful career with Idaho state titles at Coeur d’Alene. “The kids who guarded the stars in practice, those are the kids who stand out.”

Hull era

CV had another runner-up finish in 2012, but from 2016 to 2018 the Bears were almost unbeatable. Led by twins Lexie and Lacie Hull, CV’s only loss (56-55) was a state quarterfinal game as juniors that led to a fourth-place finish.

“Undoubtedly, those were the best teams to go through because basketball has gotten harder than it was before,” Walters said. “The ’18 team was the very best one, their basketball IQ was amazing. We just tried not to screw them up.”

Gonzaga Prep won its second consecutive state championship when the Hulls were freshmen, missing out on a trip to state. Their sophomore year, the Bears only had five games decided by less than 10 points.

“We began to get a big target on our backs after my sophomore year,” Lexie Hull said. “After that, every game felt like the state championship. Everybody wanted to beat us as much as we wanted to beat them.”

Besides the one-point loss in 2016-17, only one other game was decided by single digits.

Only two teams reached 50 points against the 2017-18 Bears, and none made 51. Nine teams scored less than 20. Like all the championship teams, there were more than a handful of future college players.

“I was blessed with some great athletes,” Rehkow said. “You can be the best coach or the worst coach, but if you’ve got good talent, you’re going to have a chance. I was fortunate enough to have some great talent.”

He’s quick to point out that team was the academic state champions, the third straight for CV.

That team allowed an average of 28 points a game over 28 games, a number that still amazes Rehkow.

“It’s interesting, you can’t really compare (the ’01-03 and ’16-18) teams because it’s two different styles,” he said. “It’s a whole different game because of the speed of the game.”

But Walters can compare coaching and it proves there is more than one way to reach the top.

“‘Poff’ loved to practice and at the beginning of the season we would have three-hour practices,” she said. “He scouted and watched film incessantly. We were very prepared.

“Freddie had a different approach. We only had two-hour practices, but they were specific on skill drills.”

The future

This fall a third school, Ridgeline, opened in the CV district, which is where Rehkow coaches the boys.

Walters said many good players over the years came from the Liberty Lake area, which now feeds into Ridgeline.

With two schools, the Central Valley School District was powerful.

University has four state trophies and produced one of the best GSL players in Angie Bjorklund. Bjorklund went to Tennessee, where she was one of the few to start the first game of her freshman year, scored more than 1,000 points and won an NCAA championship in 2008.

So what happens with three schools? That’s hard to say, but there’s no disputing that over the past 40 years Central Valley became the gold standard in the GSL and the state.

“I’ll tell you what,” Rehkow said, “the tradition of that place, we’ve been very blessed and fortunate to produce some not just absolutely amazing basketball players but amazing women.”

A tradition being carried on by one of their own.