Just two weeks before practices began for the winter sports season, second-year head coach of the Bear Creek girls’ basketball team, Alan Dickson, chose to take the newly-vacated head coaching job at Cedar Park Christian School in Bothell.

That left the Grizzlies’ athletic department scrambling for a last-minute replacement, and it was a veteran boys’ coach that came through in the nick of time.

New coach Greg Cheever is in his 12th year of coaching overall, having been at the 4A level as a boys’ basketball assistant at Issaquah as well as head coach of the Skyline boys’ program. Most recently, he has been on Scott Moe’s staff at The Bear Creek School since 2008.

“I wasn’t coaching the boys this year, so I had some time and the opportunity was open, and I jumped in to help them out,” Cheever recalled. “It’s a great family atmosphere, and they really want to do well and work hard.”

TALENTED TRIO

The Grizzlies this year will be led by an experienced trio of junior captains —forward Morgan Rial and guards Kendall Engelstone and Nikki Peterson.

Each of them played a role in last season’s 15-8 season when they placed first in the Sea-Tac 2B League’s North Division, and are back and ready to make a run at state.

“They’re great students off the court and great players on the court,” Cheever said of his captains. “They understand the game, get along well with each other, and have been great leaders so far.”

In addition, the senior-less Grizzlies had an influx of strong freshmen entering the program, which bodes well for the program’s future as many of those ninth-graders will see minutes on the floor this year.

“We have a very talented class of freshmen coming in, I look forward to their continued growth throughout the year,” Cheever noted. “Just a couple weeks into it so far, they’ve grown a lot.”

The Grizzlies have a couple of big-time post presences in 6-foot-2 freshman Catherine Fernandez, who scored a team-high 14 against Northwest Yeshiva in Monday night’s win, and Maddie Magee, the reigning 2B high jump state champion who will be a rebounding and shot-blocking threat with her impressive vertical leap.

With all the pieces of the puzzle, the Grizzlies just hope they can put it all together when the lights shine bright at game time.

“We want to take care of our own business, but when it comes to game time… that’s our test day,” Cheever said. “We have some really strong teams in our league — Evergreen Lutheran and Seattle Lutheran are usually strong and will be again. We know that we need to be prepared for our league play quite a bit.”

MAKING THE ADJUSTMENT

This year marks Cheever’s first girls’ coaching assignment for basketball, and the affable coach has seemed to be able to make the adjustment well while still promoting the program’s core value of hard work, according to his players.

“He’s really funny, awesome, and pushes us really hard,” said Rial.

Added Engelstone, “He makes practice really intense, so that it’s harder than all the games. That way, we’re ready.”

Besides the slower pace of the girls’ game, Cheever noted that it was a challenge to get the girls to believe that they could play with an attitude.

“The biggest adjustment was convincing them that they can be physical on the court, and it’s okay to do that,” he said. “Beyond that, they’re extremely coachable, just as the boys are here at Bear Creek.”

According to the team captains, the keys to success this year will be to continue to gel and have contributions from everybody, including the youngsters who are new to the pace of varsity basketball.

“We all really want state, but it’s going to take a team effort to get there,” said Engelstone, adding that “hustle and determination” are paramount objectives. “They’re all new to this, because we have five or six freshmen, so it’ll just be our leadership and holding their hand through these first couple games.”

Finally, unlike some teams of the past that were laden with upperclassmen, the fact that the Grizzlies are without a senior this year may end up being a blessing in disguise.

“This season I’m really looking forward to everything we have in store,” Engelstone said. “It’s gonna be great because whatever we don’t accomplish this year, we have another year all together.”

The Grizzlies play Saturday afternoon at University Prep Academy in a non-league game with tipoff at 1 p.m.