No news of note to bring you this morning, so we have a quick thought for you.
The 2013-14 Cedarcrest High School girls’ basketball team finished 17-5 this season. Pictured in front L-R: Susan Kenney, Kalee Fowler, Megan Ditore. Pictured in back L-R: Brittney Kissinger, Kathryn Smith, Avery Rich, Lacey Deming, LuAnn Townley. (Courtesy photo)
The 2013-14 basketball season was another special one for the Cedarcrest High School girls’ basketball team. Even though the season ended sooner than expected in our view with their district playoff loss earlier this week, the Red Wolves finished with a solid 17-5 record, and a 2A Cascade regular season championship, a tremendous accomplishment that joins a list of other great accomplishments for this team. According to coach Brad Knowles, this CHS team the past three seasons, anchored by seniors Susan Kenney, Kalee Fowler and Lacey Deming among others, went 52-19 and you all remember the many successes of their historic 2012-13 season, with a number of school basketball firsts – league title, district title, state playoff win and trip to the round of eight.
The past three seasons for CHS girls’ hoops have been tremendous, and the hard work of coach Brad Knowles in transforming the program into a contender has been nothing short of excellent. And now that hard work is producing results in the form of college-ready players. Knowles told the SVSJ that Fowler has verbally committed to play college basketball at Northwest University in Kirkland, where she will look to replicate the success another former Valley girls’ hoops star had while there. Anyone remember Rachel (Travis) Mitchell?? She was a former Mount Si girls’ hoopster who played under former coach Dirk Hansen about a decade ago and translated her high school success into tremendous college success with NU. It will be interesting to see what happens with Fowler, that’s for sure.
Then there’s Kenney. Knowles indicated she’s still looking for a college to play ball for, and we think she has a chance to be a successful college player, especially if she ends up in a similar-sized program such as the one that Cedarcrest grad Zach Taylor currently is at with Carroll College in Montana on the men’s side. Perhaps Carroll should give Kenney a call?
We also think Deming might have an opportunity to latch on with a college program as well, so we hope she is looking around, too. Frankly, all of this year’s senior class should look around, even if it’s at the community college level, since the accomplishments of this class of 2014 are accomplishments no college coach will ignore.
Knowles said it best to us in closing. “These great players have not only set the Cedarcrest girls basketball (program) in a winning direction, they have created a legacy that younger kids are ready to follow.” And we hope he is right. We hope that this past three years of success has inspired a new group of girls in the lower Valley to achieve greatness. You know how success of the sports teams at Mount Si High School has helped the corresponding youth sports programs in the upper Valley grow; we hope to say the same for girls’ basketball in the lower Valley as a result of the CHS team’s success.
The Cedarcrest High School sports program is among the best in the Cascade Conference, and the efforts of the girls’ basketball program will continue to help ensure that remains the case.