Splash photo by Mike Vlahovich CV girls tennis coach Stan Chalich poses with regional qualifiers from his GSL champion team, from left, doubles duo Miranda Jackson and Kasey Ames plus singles champ Kyra Harames.

By Mike Vlahovich

Stan Chalich has coached basketball, wrestling and several other boys sports in between during his 45 years teaching at Central Valley High School.

But who would have guessed this fiercely competitive former multi-sport athlete - with a gruff, yet gregarious exterior seemingly more suited for coaching the boys - would ultimately have his greatest coaching successes in girls tennis?

Having players like Kyra Harames doesn't hurt.

Harames is the latest in a line of players, like Liberty Lake neighbor and four-time state qualifier Leslie Ho, who have raised the profile of the sport at CV. The Bears had their third Greater Spokane League championship and second straight unbeaten season this spring. At the time of this writing, Harames had lost but once all year.

The junior made a huge jump this season in becoming CV's first Inland Empire singles champion, a tournament that draws players from around eastern Washington.

"When I made it to the semifinals, I knew it was going to be difficult," she said. 

She lost the first set and pulled out 6-4 wins in the next two in order to reach the final, where she needed three sets for the title.

She then breezed through District 8 competition, winning 6-0, 6-0 in the finals before winning the regional tournament to advance to state competition for the first time.

Playing No. 1 singles her entire time at CV, Harames' game has improved in increments. As a freshman, she placed fourth in the district tournament. Last year, she finished third in both the IE tournament and district. This year, she took it to the top.

"I'm just more focused and taking it more seriously for when I get to college," she said.

Harames said she's been playing tennis since age 7. By age 12, she had a coach and began traveling the PNW circuit and last summer played in a zone tournament in Texas as one of 20 girls chosen for the trip.

"When she first came out, she excelled," Chalich said. "This year, she's in competition all over and is ranked (in the Pacific Northwest section)."

Some of that is his doing. The former head coach of wrestling and boys basketball and an assistant in both baseball and football, was a standout in the latter three sports at CV and went on to play in college. 

"I tell you it was a real adjustment to take the girls," said the man who has been at the helm for some 30 years. The first group he had balked at his style, Chalich recalled. He "worked them and worked them. There was one boss and that's the coach."

He learned to tamp down his intensity - "I don't yell as much" - and the basics that apply to other sports applied as well to tennis. The program, he said, has grown from fewer than 20 girls to 60.

"With tennis, it's the same aspect," he said. "Hand-eye coordination, getting the body in position; once I taught that, everything's there. They worked harder and harder and harder. Any little bit of success, I tell them right away."

Harames pointed to Chalich's rapid-fire, two-on-one drill that keeps players moving and helps develop shot placement - and the fact that he can coach her during a match if she gets down on herself.

"She's powerful, and now she has outstanding control of putting the ball where she wants," he said.

This year's player records are an indicator why CV finished unbeaten in league. Heading into regional, Harames was 21-1 and 56-6 over three years. Chalich said she ranks with Leslie Ho and Jill Schillinger among the best he's coached.

Fellow singles players Abby Pedersen is 9-4, Elena Wolf 14-0 (50-4 over four years), Lela Cooper 12-2.

Doubles players Kasey Ames and Miranda Jackson were 12-4 and finished second in districts. Telara Harper and Morgan Clark are 11-4.

"I have a bunch of kids who are good listeners and willing to work," Chalich said. "Their work ethic is unbelievable."

That's all a coach can ask for.