After their first season of basketball competition against schools from the Iowa athletic associations, the Cedar Valley Christian boys and girls teams found out they could hold their own on the court.

They also found out their court itself couldn’t hold enough fans. And it isn’t big enough.

As a result, planning is underway to build a new gym at the small private Christian school in southeast Cedar Rapids.

School principal and boys basketball coach Jeff Pospisil said fund raising will begin soon for a proposed $2 million facility.

The hope is to have it built before next season.

If that doesn’t work out, Pospisil said the school will look to rent other gym facilities next year for its home games.

Cedar Valley’s gymnasium also serves as the school’s cafeteria. It seats about 200 fans on a set of bleachers on one side of the court and has very little space between the court and the walls. Also, the playing surface itself is just 74-foot long, 10 feet less than regulation high school gyms.

Because of its tight quarters, Pospisil said it was difficult to schedule teams for home games. There were only two this year, both against equally small Christian schools that Cedar Valley had played previously.

“We made the schedule work this year,”Pospisil said. “But it wasn’t ideal to play 19 games on the road.”

The boys and girls teams each won both contests on their own floor.

In their first year against bigger schools, the boys team finished 13-10 while the girls were 4-18.  When the boys team qualified for a home game in postseason play, it had to be moved to Marion High School to meet tournament guidelines.

Now that Cedar Valley has a year of experience as a full-fledged member of Iowa High School Athletic Association, Pospisil said a new gym has become a priority.

“When we added 10 classrooms to the school several years ago, that was to be phase one of a building project and a gym was phase two,” Pospsil said. “Then we had the flood of 2008 and a downturn in the economy, so the gym was put on hold. We think now is the time to put it back on the table.”

So far, Cedar Valley has tentatively scheduled nine home games next year for its 21-game schedule.  Whether they will be played in a new gym with seating for at least 500 or in other facilities depends on the success of fund-raising.

Pospisil said the proposed building would be on school grounds north of the current gym and that there would be additional paved parking.

“With our success this year, it confirmed we made the right decision by joining the Iowa association,” Pospisil said. "So this is the next logical step.”