Cheney basketball squads edged by visiting West Valley in GNL play

The Cheney High School boys and girls basketball teams dropped a pair of close games to West Valley in the run up to last Thursday’s Golden Feather spirit game at Medical Lake. The Blackhawks fell 46-43 to the visiting Eagles while the Lady Blackhawks lost a similarly close contest, 43-39.

Boys head coach Gregg Smith said it was not a well-played game from either team, which might have been looking past each other to their respective rivalry games. West Valley faced East Valley in their spirit game Friday night.

Twice the Blackhawks rallied, coming back from an 11-8 first quarter deficit to tie the game at the half at 21. In the third, Cheney fell behind again, but opened the fourth quarter with a 10-2 run to take a 39-35 lead, but could not hold on for their first league win.

West Valley’s Collin Sather led all scorers with 18 points while the Blackhawks Jaylen Worthem had 15, the only two players in double-digit scoring. Devin Cook added nine for Cheney, who shot 31.5 percent from the field overall, 1 for 6 from 3-point range and 14 for 19 from the foul line. Cheney also committed 12 turnovers to West Valley’s 14.

“We just had a hard time putting the ball in the basket, again,” Smith said.

The Lady Blackhawks didn’t fare much better, nor did the Lady Eagles. After leading by one at the end of the first quarter, Cheney trailed by one at the break and by five, 30-25, heading into the fourth quarter in the loss.

West Valley’s Grace Phan was the only player in double-digit scoring with 13 points. Hailee Huff led Cheney with nine while Holly Flynn added seven.

The loss drops the Lady Blackhawks to 3-2 in Great Northern League play, one-half game behind second-place Clarkston an one-and-a-half games back of league leader, East Valley. Cheney can cut into that this week, traveling to East Valley Tuesday to face the Knights and hosting Pullman on Friday before traveling to Clarkston Saturday.

The Blackhawks remain winless in league at 0-5, but have similar opportunities this week as their female counterparts.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.