Quantae Anderson steps down at Mead, KC Ahrens takes over | Prep notebook
Longtime Mead girls basketball coach Quantae Anderson recently stepped down from the position in order to spend more time with family. This season, Anderson completed his 18th season as a head coach – 15 of those seasons were at Mead.
The Panthers went 18-6 last season, 7-2 in the Greater Spokane League. They finished third in the district tournament, qualifying for state with a 62-36 win over Kamiakin and earned the No. 12 seed to the State 4A tournament.
Mead lost to 13th -seeded Tahoma 55-41 in the regional round.
Anderson steps away with a career record of 258-136 with one state championship, four league titles and four GSL coach of the year awards.
He will be replaced by KC Ahrens, formerly of Deer Park. Ahrens guided the Stags to a 24-4 record this year and 11-1 in league.
Deer Park reached state each of the past three years, finishing fourth in 2026 and third in ’24 in the 2A tourney and not placing in the 1A bracket in ’23.
Ahrens brings a career record of 222-120 in a 16-year career, nine with Deer Park. He is a seven-time coach of the year.
CdA hires Brown
Last week, Coeur d’Alene announced Arnold Brown as its new boys varsity basketball coach. He previously served as an assistant coach with Coeur d’Alene during the 2025 season.
Before joining the Vikings, Brown served as head boys coach at Shadle Park from 2018-23. His coaching experience also includes assistant coaching roles in football, baseball and basketball.
Earlier in his career, Brown earned multiple coach of the year awards in the Great Northern League while at Medical Lake, winning the State 2A championship and Washington state 2A coach of the year in 2005.
Mead runners crush record
The Mead boys 4x800-meter relay team took eight seconds off the school record on Sunday at the Brooks PR Invitational at Renton Memorial Stadium in Renton.
The team of junior Anderson Williams, sophomore Drew Dinges, sophomore Stejer Franklin and junior Aaron Pooler finished second with a time of 7 minutes, 45.92 seconds, establishing a new school mark. Stadium (Tacoma) was first at 7:43.63. Lewis and Clark was fourth (7:51.78) and Gonzaga Prep was sixth (7:58.30).
CdA Summer Shootout
The sixth annual CdA Summer Shootout basketball tournament will be held June 19-21 at HUB Sports Center in Liberty Lake.
The tournament will host 70 high school boys and girls varsity and JV basketball teams from Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, California and Canada.
Day passes are $10. Three-day full access passes are $20. Visit cdasummershootout.com for more information.