PORT ANGELES — Mike Knowles was chatting with a reporter before an Olympic Avalanche basketball practice at Peninsula College last month.
“Mike, it’s time,” Avalanche head coach Joe Marvelle said to Knowles.
Knowles quickly gathered the team’s 10 players in a circle at midcourt, where they circled around Alison Knowles, Mike’s daughter and a member of the Peninsula College women’s basketball team.
Mike Knowles then began practice for the Avalanche, a select team of soon-to-be fifth-grade girls from Port Angeles, Neah Bay and Sequim.
Knowles, the former longtime Port Angeles High School girls coach and current assistant for the Peninsula College women’s team, serves as the Avalanche’s head of basketball training and development. Essentially, he runs the team’s practices.
He starts with dribbling drills, including one in which the girls dribble two balls at a time, one with each hand, up and down the court without looking down.
A few moments later, the players do a one-on-one drill with one dribbling down the court and another playing defense and trying to guide her away from the center of the court.
“Be serious about this,” Knowles barks before a shooting drill. “Work on your form, work on your footwork.”
Peninsula-wide team
The Avalanche are, from Port Angeles, Camille Stensgard, Hannah Reetz, Millie Long, Myra Walker and Jaida Wood; from Neah Bay, Laila Greene, Courtney Swan, Patience Swan and Ruth Moss; and Kalli Wiker of Sequim.
“I wanted to play for an AAU team, and I wanted to play against different people and travel to different places,” Wiker said of her decision to play for the Avalanche.
This is the second incarnation of the Olympic Avalanche.
The original Avalanche played from 2008-2010, and featured 2013 Port Angeles High School graduates Macy Walker, Shayla Northern and Mariah Frazier, all of whom have committed to play basketball at Olympic College in Bremerton.
Also playing for the original team were Sequim High School three-sport standout Alexas Besand and Port Angeles incoming senior Krista Johnson, who is the Avalanche’s all-time leading scorer.
Those are just the mainstays from the program’s first three years. The list of players who spent a year or two with the program reads like a who’s who of North Olympic Peninsula girls high school sports. (See inset on Page B3).
The original Avalanche compiled a 62-31 record while playing in 23 tournaments.
In those 23 tournaments, they finished in the top three 19 times, made the championship game 12 times and won eight first-place trophies.
The current Avalanche players have only been together since the spring, but they have made strides and are already making their presence known around the Puget Sound.
They took second place at the Seattle Cherry Pick Tournament in North Bend in early July, but suffered two 20-point losses to Emerald City Basketball Academy Swish.
At the River Classic in Seattle three weeks later, the Avalanche placed fourth.
The tournament included some of Seattle’s best AAU teams. Including Emerald City.
The Swish again beat the Avalanche, but this time the score was 30-27.
Olympic beat Bellevue FOH, one of Seattle’s best teams, 28-26 in overtime.
The Avalanche’s rapid improvement isn’t a huge surprise, considering its practices are run by a college assistant.
Mike Knowles and Marvelle also are helped at practice by Alison Knowles, and Avalanche alumni. Port Angeles legend and University of Alaska Anchorage player Jessica Madison even participated in one practice.
“They’re really good,” Krista Johnson said of the current Avalanche.
“In fourth grade, I wasn’t that good. It’s crazy how far they’ve come in just a few months.”
Along with winning games, the Avalanche program also helps prepare the players to play at the high school level.
“I coach these girls like they’re in high school,” Mike Knowles said.
Knowles helped with the original Avalanche, and Johnson said it helped her know what to expect when she made it to high school.
“He pushed us really hard,” Johnson said.
“That was new for me, but I liked it.”
Johnson said her biggest improvement as a member of the Avalanche came on defense.
“The Avalanche are known for playing good defense,” she said.
That philosophy has continued with the new team.
“I was a mess at defense, but now I’m pretty good,” Jaida Wood said.
Sometimes, the practices are too much like high school.
“Mike doesn’t know any better. He gets out there, and thinks they’re in high school,” Marvelle said.
“Sometimes he just forgets: They’re 10. So I’ll have to come up to him and say something like, ‘Mike, Mike, they don’t know what weak-side help is.’
“And he’ll say, ‘Oh, OK. Have Eric tell them.’”
Assistant coach Eric Johnson, Krista’s father, has an uncanny ability to communicate with the young players.
“Eric is the best assistant coach you could ask for,” Marvelle said.
“He’s the basketball whisperer, I call him, because he helps kids understand in kid terms what we mean.”
While playing for the Olympic Avalanche is good preparation for high school, it also is valuable to the high school teams the girls will play on.
“It’s huge to have a youth program like this,” Knowles said.
“They can learn the game and absorb it while they’re young.
“They learn offensive skills and defensive concepts. When they get to high school, they’re able to start contributing earlier.”
Knowles said he has talked to Mike Poindexter so he can focus what he teaches the Avalanche to fit the philosophy of the current Port Angeles girls coach, so the learning curve is shorter when the Avalanche players are freshman.
Marvelle said the program is more about winning and preparing for high school. In fact, it is about more than basketball.
During the practice at Peninsula College, Ruth Moss stopped practice to ask a question.
She didn’t just stay where she was and ask something simple, such as where she was supposed to be on the court.
The 10-year-old walked to within a foot or two of the 6-foot-5 Knowles and asked a series of questions in order to fully understand the defensive drill the Avalanche were working on.
“For the first few months, Ruth wouldn’t say a word. Wouldn’t say a word,” Marvell said.
“Now, she’s gaining confidence in the system, seeing what kind of player she is, and we’re building her up.”
“I feel confident these girls will win a lot of games and plenty of tournaments. This a very talented group so that should be a given.
“Job one for me as a coach is to instill in each one of these girls total confidence and belief in themselves that they can do absolutely anything.
“I want them to be a group of high self-image kids that believe in themselves and know that no matter what life may throw at them they can handle it.”
But the players must commit to the team and taking it seriously.
After being selected for the team, each player must sign a two-page document call the General Program Rules.
Marvelle said it is the exact document Knowles had his players sign when he coached the Roughriders.
Although none of the rules are outlandish, they are stringent.
Once on the basketball court, think and talk basketball only.
Coaches must be notified in advance of absences or tardiness. Consequences for absence and being late.
Another rule is that only players, not parents, can discuss issues with playing time with coaches.
Parents must also sign the General Program Rules.
“In youth sports programs, parents can be the backbone or the Achilles heel of any team,” Marvelle said.
“A great strength of the first Avalanche team is we had great parents who supported the coaches and let coaches coach.
“I’m hoping we have the same thing with this group.”
The Neah Bay families are especially supportive, driving their daughters to and from Port Angeles two or three times each week.
Another parent, Connie Walker, mother of Macy and Myra, got the ball rolling on the new Avalanche when she sent a text message to Marvelle asking him if he wanted to start another team.
The families also appear to have passed on some athletic genes to the current Avalanche players.
Myra Walker wears No. 15, just like Macy, an All-Olympic League First Team and All-Peninsula honoree last season.
Myra is also the little sister of Stefan Walker, first-team all-league as a junior and senior in football and basketball and league MVP and Kitsap Sun West Sound Football Player of the Year as a quarterback for Port Angeles in 2006.
Another brother, Keenan, also a quarterback, was the Olympic League co-MVP and All-Peninsula Football MVP in 2011.
Myra said Keenan was the sibling who played the most basketball with her when she was younger.
Ruth Moss is the daughter of Rob Moss, Neah Bay High School’s all-time leading scorer.
Her brother Robert was the All-Peninsula Boys Basketball MVP as a senior in 2010.
Sister Cherish Moss was named the North Olympic League MVP two consecutive years.
Another sister, Cierra Moss, was named All-State Second Team and was the leading scorer on the Peninsula as a junior last year with 17.9 points per game.
Brother Ryan was second on the Red Devils in scoring as a freshman last season.
Millie Long’s father, Kenton Long, was the Southern League MVP his senior basketball season in Modesto, Calif.
Laila Greene’s mom, Lindsay Greene, formerly Lindsay Ritter, scored more than 1,000 points in high school and received a full-ride scholarship basketball scholarship.
Laila’s uncle is Neah Bay quarterback Josiah Greene, last year’s All-Peninsula Football Offensive MVP.
Courtney and Patience Swan are cousins of Krista Johnson.
Kalli Wiker is the niece of Sequim football coach Erik Wiker.
The Avalanche are taking the month of August off — though many players are training with Mike Knowles’ Competitive Hoops program during the break — and will resume practice in mid-September and play at the School of Basketball Tournament Sept. 21-22 in Seattle.
Follow the Avalanche through its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/avalancheaau.
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Sports reporter/outdoors columnist Lee Horton can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5152 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
