Lady Blackhawks season ends in loss at West Valley

If one must assign blame for the Cheney High School girls basketball team’s elimination-round playoff loss to West Valley, Lorin Carlon said you can lay it on him.

The long-time head coach in his first year with the Lady Blackhawks has been trying new things late in the season, one of which was implementing a 1-3-1 zone on defense to help cut down on opponent’s penetration to the basket. The tactic worked in two previous games, wins over Pullman and Clarkston.

But against the Lady Eagles Feb. 8, Carlon returned to man-to-man in the first quarter. The result was four 3-pointers by West Valley to take a 19-7 lead Cheney never managed to overcome in the 45-31 loss.

“That’s one on me,” Carlon said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have zoned them from the very start.”

Cheney also struggled on the boards, particularly offensively where they were out rebounded 21-8. The Lady Blackhawks also committed 17 turnovers. They were led in scoring by the eight points of Brette Draper, with Haley Pemberton and Aija Loffredi each adding six.

Cheney ends the season with an 11-10 overall record, 6-6 in Great Northern League play, finishing with the No. 4-seed into the District 7 playoffs. The records were improvements over last year’s 8-14, 3-9 marks, although last year’s Lady Blackhawks did advance to the playoffs’ second round with an upset win at Pullman.

Carlon said he saw much progress in his team, even with a dip midway through the season. The biggest challenge for both players and coaches was familiarity.

“They’re starting to understand me and I’m understanding them,” Carlon said. “They’re good kids, and they work hard.”

The Lady Blackhawks will lose two seniors, Elle Davis and Kristie McGourin. As a starter, McGourin was Cheney’s main rebounder, usually pulling down 7-13 boards a game, Carlon said, adding it may be hard to replace her in that aspect.

Now that he and his players have a year together under their belts, Carlon said he hopes to put in some more elements of his coaching style. He likes parts of the “Triangle Offense” famously employed by former head coach Phil Jackson when he coached Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the rest of the Chicago Bulls to six NBA titles in the 1990s.

The triangle is simple, and a good offense for a team that doesn’t have a lot of speed. Carlon wasn’t sure if his players could learn it this year, but feels good about putting it in for the future.

Carlon also said he likes to employ some high-low offensive sets, but doesn’t know how well that will work. Cheney doesn’t get much taller next season, even with the addition of 6-foot freshman Shelby Draper, who saw some varsity action late in the season.

The Lady Blackhawks can expect to play some games this summer, mainly in tournaments at West Valley, Eastern Washington University and possibly Gonzaga. Carlon said former Medical Lake boys head coach Arnold Brown, who took up head coaching duties at Wapato this season, is running a summer tournament in the Yakima Valley as he did in Medical Lake, and hopes to take Cheney players down there for a change of scenery and opponents.

“I want to have them for June, and then let them have the rest of the summer off,” Carlon added.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].