The Juanita boys basketball team must forfeit its 68-50 win over Liberty, a game played on Feb. 4, because the Rebels used a player who had not been medically cleared.

Some may remember this post from last week. Click here.

Juanita senior Robby Ryan was scheduled to undergo knee surgery the next day and wanted to take the floor one last time. He hit a three in the corner as time expired, creating one of the more exciting moments Rebels coach Jeff Patrick has experienced.

Patrick made sure to get clearance from Ryan's parents, but he didn't get it cleared through a doctor, creating the problem that forced Juanita to forfeit.

"I would do it again in a second," Patrick said on Tuesday.

With the forfeit, the Rebels will finish as the No. 6 seed in the KingCo playoffs instead of the No. 5 seed.

Principals of the four 2A Nisqually League schools yesterday approved the merger with the four SPSL schools that are dropping to 2A this fall, making the SPSL 2A a reality.

The league will be comprised of Eatonville, Clover Park, Fife, Franklin Pierce, Steilacoom, Sumner, Washington and White River.

The SPSL 3A will have just six members -- Auburn Mountainview, Bonney Lake, Decatur (dropping from 4A), Enumclaw, Lakes, and Peninsula.

Emerald Ridge was looking to shake things up in its football program after finishing 0-10 last season.

But even administrators didn't envision this: five co-head coaches.

That's the route ER is taking after the fivesome sold themselves as a group. Troy Halfaday, Brian Anderson, Darren Erath, Adam Schakel and Torey Donovan have been jointly hired to run the program.

"Our football program had to be blown up," athletic director Dell Dittus said. "We need a radical change. A lot was going on that wasn't working."

And these five coaches, who collectively have 23 years of coaching experience at the high-school level and 25 at the junior-high level, have administrators believing this will work.

"Hook and sinker, they're committed to this," Dittus said. "It's outside the box. We'll see how it goes."

Dittus said he wants to make sure there is a "face" to the program and a designated liason, and Halfaday will serve in that capacity. He also will be special teams coach. Erath and Schakel will serve as co-offensive cooerdinators, while Anderson will be the defensive coordinator and Donovan will serve as the line coach and strength and conditioning coach.

Dittus said the five are good friends who teach in the Puyallup School District, most at Ballou Junior High. Three of them coached football at Ballou last fall, while the other two were assistants at Rogers.

The coaching vacancy was created when Vince Tarsi stepped down after three seasons, leaving with a 7-23 mark.

Here is a look back at Monday's high-school basketball action:

Girls highlights

-- Meadowdale's Margreet Barhoum scored a game-high 21 points during the Mavericks' 68-48 win over Lynnwood. Meadowdale outscored the Royals 17-4 in the fourth quarter.

-- Quinn Kesselring finished with 16 points and eight assists to lead Arlington past Everett, 73-44.

Jessica Van Loo had seven steals.

-- Shorewood got off to a hot start in its 46-30 win against Mariner, outscoring the Marauders 22-3 in the first quarter. As a team, Shorewood hit five threes in the first quarter.

-- Stanwood's Samantha Kelleigh scored 22 points and hit six three-pointers during the Spartans' 45-41 win over Snohomish.

-- Monroe sophomore Alyssa Brazel scored the game-tying basket with 17 seconds left to send the game into overtime and help the Bearcats defeat Cascade, 62-56.

Kierra Wilkins had a career-high 13 rebounds for Monroe, while Danielle Love scored 29 points for Cascade.

Here are the latest high-school hoops rankings from CoachesAid.com. These rankings include all classifications. Also, look for the AP rankings on Wednesday.

Click here for boys.

Click here for girls.

I'm starting to think I should just flip a coin, or maybe throw darts at some target dotted with school names.

Girls basketball teams around the state are not making it easy to come up with rankings I feel good about every week.

In both 4A and 3A last week, not one but two teams in the top-five stumbled. In a couple of cases, they flat fell on their faces.

I'll start in 4A, where No. 3 Chiawana of Pasco had an 11-game win streak snapped by Walla Walla, and get this score: 40-29. Ouch. It was only the second loss of the season for the Riverhawks, who lost to No. 2 Federal Way over the holidays.

And No. 4 Newport lost for only the second time, too -- to a hot Skyline team, 57-22. Double ouch! Skyline apparently shot 72% in the first half and 58% for the game. Plus Newport star Betsy Kingma played only 12 minutes while battling the flu and scored a season-low seven points, nearly 12 below her average. And two other key players were out with injuries.

So, Woodinville jumps back up to No. 3 -- even though the Falcons have lost to Newport. And you can see the other movement below. Chiawana and Newport drop to 6-7, respectively. No. 8 Mead lost to Gonzaga Prep, snapping a 12-game streak. So, for now, the Panthers are out and Central Valley joins the top-10.

Oh, one correction in a statement I made while posting last week's rankings. Mount Tahoma has not lost to Stadium -- it was South Kitsap.

In 3A, No. 4 Mercer Island and No. 5 White River both loss close ones, MI to Bellevue and White River to Bonney Lake (in OT). Mercer Island was short-handed, so I only dropped the Islanders one spot this week, to No. 5. White River slides to No. 7, with Port Angeles -- riding a 10-game win streak -- jumping inbetween.

Shadle Park inches up to No. 4.

Shorecrest, formerly at No. 7, lost by 20 to Meadowdale, so I'm shaking things up again this week, dropping the Scots out of the top-10, for now. Capital (former No. 10) is also back on the "watch" list after losing to Yelm (which then lost to Timberline).

Bonney Lake is back in the rankings at No. 9 and the 10th spot goes to Mount Rainier, which has lost only to No. 2 Kennedy (twice) and 4A Eastlake.

There are some big games this week and weekend (some 4A leagues begin playoffs), so it will be interesting to see how these rankings hold up.

Class 4A

1. Auburn Riverside (20-0)
2. Federal Way (17-3)
3, Woodinville (17-1)
4, Kentwood (Covington) (16-4)
5, Edmonds-Woodway (17-1)
6, Chiawana (Pasco) (17-2)
7, Newport (Bellevue) (16-2)
8, Issaquah (15-3)
9, Bellarmine Prep (Tacoma) (14-6)
10, Central Valley (Spokane) (14-4)

Others to watch (alphabetically) -- Bethel (Graham), Eastlake, Evergreen (Vancouver), Garfield, Gonzaga-Prep (Spokane), Jackson (Mill Creek), Kelso, Lewis and Clark (Spokane), Marysville-Pilchuck, Mead (Spokane), Monroe, Mount Tahoma (Tacoma), Olympia, Richland, Skyline (Issaquah), Skyview (Vancouver), South Kitsap (Port Orchard), Walla Walla.

Class 3A

1. Holy Names (17-2)
2. Kennedy Catholic (16-3)
3, Prairie (Brush Prairie) (14-4)
4, Shadle Park (Spokane) (11-7)
5, Mercer Island (14-4)
6, Port Angeles (15-2)
7, White River (Buckley) (15-3)
8, West Valley (Yakima) (12-6)
9, Bonney Lake (15-4)
10, Mount Rainier (Des Moines) (15-3)

Others to watch (alphabetically) -- Auburn Mountainview, Bellevue, Capital (Olympia), Glacier Peak (Snohomish), Lakes (Lakewood), Lynnwood, Meadowdale (Lynwood), North Central (Spokane), Seattle Prep, Shorecrest (Lynwood), Sumner, Yelm.

At the KingCo 3A wrestling championships this weekend, an award was dedicated to Sammamish wrestler A.J. Leitch. It is called "Heart Without Limits, The A.J. Leitch Award," and the Totems junior was the first recipient.

Leitch, who wrestles despite being born without kneecaps or forearms due to a condition called TAR syndrome, will present the award next year. It will be presented each year at the KingCo championships to a wrestler who has overcome obstacles.

"It's great," Sammamish coach Riley McNeal said. "It just shows that the coaches are a class act in our division. It's just the whole wrestling community coming together and embracing hard work, showing that it's a sport for anybody."

Here is the story I wrote about Leitch last week, click here.

I just spoke to Eastside Catholic athletic director Lance Gatter and he said the school did not get enough votes to be admitted into KingCo 3A/2A.

League principals and athletic directors held a vote on Monday and Eastside Catholic needed to get 80 percent approval. Gatter said he did not know the specifics of the vote.

The Crusaders will remain a part of the Metro League.

"We're disappointed, but we're still part of the community out here and we're still going to reach out to the KingCo schools and do non-league games to try and show them that we're a viable option for them in the future and continue to build on the great relationships that we already have with a number of schools," Gatter said.

Based on what I learned last week, that means that a Skyline-Bellevue football matchup in Week 2 next season should now be official.

It will update this with any details that come in.

I spoke with Terry Agnew, who is Woodinville's athletic director and president of the KingCo athletic directors, and he told me that the vote was conducted by secret ballot and the exact totals would not be made public. However, he did say that Eastside Catholic was close to the 80 percent it needed to get admission into KingCo.