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A South Hill battle erupted Wednesday afternoon, but like the Rubber Chicken rivalry basketball game between Lewis and Clark and Ferris it was positive confrontation and there were no losers.
The scene was the 30th annual Inland Northwest Sports Awards at the Spokane Convention Center and the two rival Greater Spokane League high schools took home four of the five major awards.
LC hauled off three junior awards, Male Athlete of the Year (football player Alex Shaw), Coach of the Year (Tom Yearout, football) and Female Team of the Year (girls basketball). Ferris received the Male Team of the Year (basketball).
The fifth award, Female Athlete of the Year, went to basketball standout Angie Bjorklund of University High School, who also won the Amateur Female Athlete of the Year. The senior awards were announced a day earlier.
Bjorklund, who is starting for top-ranked Tennessee, was represented by her sister Jami, who was the keynote speaker.
"Always write down anything good and motivational you hear," said Jami Bjorklund, a starter on the Gonzaga women's basketball team.
Then she pulled out her journal and referred to her entry from March 1, 2004, after Nick Westerberg, the father of former Central Valley and Arizona State star Emily Westerberg, spoke to the U-Hi basketball team before it left for the state tournament.
"There are 86,400 seconds in a day and when I wake up in the morning I want to use all of them up," Bjorklund wrote. "I can do anything I want with those seconds. From now on I'll remember that and go through my day with a good attitude, treat others well and do something useful."
She asked the 1,100 young athletes from dozens of area schools to recall what they did with their 24 hours, or 1,440 minutes, or those 86,400 seconds on Tuesday.
"When I was in high school, Angie and I realized we were wasting too many minutes watching TV," Bjorklund said. "So we gave up watching TV in order to make time for working on our game. We would spend extra time, almost every day, practicing basketball. … So my challenge to you is to make the most of every second you have been given in a day."
Then she went back to her journal, again referencing Westerberg, whose daughter was a two-time winner of the junior Female Athlete of the Year award and a finalist this year for the senior award.
"The only two things you can control when you step onto the court are working hard and having fun," she wrote. "Soon, there won't be basketball for me anymore. And when I look back I want to know that I did those two things."
Then she referenced her current GU teammate, senior Rachel Kane, who recently had her career end with a knee injury.
"You never know what could happen to you at any given moment," Bjorklund said. "For this reason, I encourage you to enjoy every second you are playing your sport and never take it for granted."
It was obvious from the finalists that the sportswriters and broadcasters had tough choices to make. All 10 coaches, 10 total teams and 20 athletes represented one – or more – state championships.
Yearout and Shaw represented the improbable. After finishing second in the GSL, the Tigers won five playoff games, the last three on the road, to finish 11-2 with only the fourth big-school championship in Spokane history.
Though Yearout and Shaw were surprised by the honors, Shaw was composed enough, in addition to recognizing his family, coaches and teammates, to give a "special shout out," for his offensive linemen, special teams and scout team players "who don't get enough recognition."
But when it came time to pick a team, Ferris' undefeated state champion basketball group came out on top – though senior Erick Cheadle quipped, "I thought LC was going to get that one, too."
That's because voters also spread the wealth, recognizing the LC girls for their back-to-back state basketball titles in lieu of Mead volleyball, which won its fifth straight state title and the three previous Female Team of the Year awards.
The fifth annual Rockwood Clinic Trainer of the Year went to Joe Kreilkamp of Cheney. The second Sportsmanship of the Year award, presented by Hoopfest, went to East Valley senior Clete Hanson.