The boys lacrosse A team completed a five-day devastation of its three closest pursuers by scoring three goals in the game’s first two minutes and maintaining unrelenting defensive pressure in a 14-2 romp over Maple Valley in Wednesday’s final regular season game.
In the three games, Bainbridge outscored the opposition 41-9 and established itself as the clear favorite to win the state title next Saturday. The team hosts a semi-final game Wednesday against Bellevue or Maple Valley.
With the Maple Valley game barely a minute old, Adam Smith passed to Joe Picha for the first goal. Forty-five seconds later, Scott Burkland fed Sam Cameron for another score and Maple Valley called a timeout. It had no effect as Jacob Hayashi took a pass from Tyler Bural within 20 seconds and fired a ground-hugger into the goal from about 12 yards out.
That was all that Bainbridge needed to run its record to 14-0, though the team scored five more times before the break to take an 8-2 lead. Bainbridge shut out Maple Valley, the league’s second-best offensive team, in the second half and added six more.
Late in the first half Andrew Shelton supplied the individual defensive highlight, blocking a Maple Valley shot so hard that the ball sailed into the grandstand. Goalie Charlie Delius had another fine game, recording 11 saves. And coach Ryan Painter singled out defender Ethan Piraino for allowing just one shot and one goal by the league’s leading scorer.
David VanderHoek led the team with four goals and Picha added three. Jacob Hayashi had two, while Matt Steffen, Luke Tjemsland, Robert Vasta, Smith and Cameron each had single tallies. Cameron and Hayashi both had three assists.
Eastside Ravens B 8, Bainbridge B 4 – The team suffered its first loss of the season, giving up five third period goals after a 3-3 halftime tie. Neal Bateman and Trevor Charles each scored twice, which remained in first place in the B division at 10-1.
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Division-winning fastpitchers go 1-1
The fastpitch team overwhelmed Ingraham 12-2 in five innings in Wednesday’s opening round of the Metro tournament, but lost 3-0 to Ballard on Thursday in a meeting of the two division champions. That set up yesterday’s game against Blanchet for the No. 3 and No. 4 Metro seeds in next weekend’s District 2 tournament in Tukwila. Beating Blanchet would mean a first-round game against the No. 7 Metro seed – most likely Ingraham.
“The kids played good defense,” said coach Steve Nelson of the Ingraham game, which reversed the team’s 3-0 loss to the Rams in April, the Spartans’ only defeat during the final 14 games of the regular season. “Caiti Kruse had a good day at second and Ashley Anderson played well at first.”
Bianca Quezada and Chrissy Haugen both had two hits, with Quezada scoring twice and driving in a run and Haugen scoring once. Anderson and Alexis Hujar each had two-run singles in the fifth inning to help seal the outcome.
Sara Robinson struck out four, scattered four hits and allowed no earned runs.
“(Catcher Amanda) Perna did a really good job of calling the game, especially with the couple of good hitters they have,” Nelson said. “It was just a good all-around team effort.”
Of the Ballard game, Nelson was succinct: “We didn’t hit,” as the Spartans fanned nine times and had just three safeties.
“But give Ballard credit,” he added. “They’re a well-coached team that makes almost no errors. Their pitcher was really on, hitting her spots. We just couldn’t get anything going.
“Hopefully tomorrow we’ll bring our bats so we can go into districts on a high note.”
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Kickers head into must-win game
“It’ll be post-season or post-mortem,” said soccer coach Alex von Reis Crooks before last night’s winner-to-state, loser-out game Metro Tournament game against Blanchet following the Spartans’ 1-0 loss to Seattle Prep on Wednesday. Both games were at Seattle’s Memorial Stadium.
“The Prep goal (which came in the 27th minute) was a fatal series of duffs,” he explained. “The fellow who scored didn’t look like he was used to being in that position, but he happened to be in the right place at the right time. They had a corner kick, we didn’t clear it and he was unmarked.”
In what von Reis Crooks termed “quite a midfield battle,” that one letdown proved decisive. Bainbridge had just four shots and while Prep was credited with 12.
“We’re doing better on AstroTurf, but it’s still a learning process,” he added. “We still look like deer caught in the headlights.”
But he wasn’t ready to throw in the towel.
“It will be a challenge,” he said, “but we did play better in the second half against Blanchet when we played them last week.”
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Five racketeers head to Districts
Five Bainbridge tennis players qualified for next week’s District 2 tournament after Thursday’s final round of the Metro League Tennis Individual Tournament.
The doubles team of Amanda Allender and Sara Suffis had the highest Spartan finish, advancing to the championship finals by defeating the #3 seed on Tuesday, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. But they lost 6-1, 6-1 on Thursday to the top-seeded team from Prep
Whitney Cheng, who came into the tournament seeded 11th, finished fourth in girls singles after losing 5-7, 6-4, 7-5. Kristen Carmel, who defeated teammate Maggie Fick on Tuesday, finished sixth with a 6-0, 6-3 loss. Elliot Beam easily won on Tuesday, 6-1, 6-3, but lost 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 on Thursday and wound up sixth.
The mixed doubles team of Tessa Quigley and Jake Kanev won 7-6, 6-4 on Tuesday but lost 6-2, 6-1 on Thursday to end their season, as mixed doubles isn’t contested at the district or state level.
“Metro is probably the best tennis league in the state, so for us to get five kids to move on is a pretty good accomplishment,” said coach Mike Anderson.
District competition starts Tuesday at Lower Woodland.
Spartans out at first base in Metro
Andy Nelson ripped a two-run first-inning single, Sam Donnelly slammed a 400-foot home run and Simon Pollack stole home as the Spartan baseball team built a 6-0 lead over Ballard after three innings in Thursday’s first round of the Metro Tournament.
But a leadoff walk in the fourth ballooned into an eight-run fourth for the Beavers. The Bainbridge bats fell silent and Ballard tacked on six more runs in the fifth, eventually winning 16-6 and ending the Spartans’ season.
“Walks killed us all year, and today they caught up with us,” said coach Jayson Gore. “We just couldn’t throw strike one, so they had a lot of nice 2-0 pitches to hit. And being ahead 6-0 makes a ten-run loss even worse.”
“But I consider that we had a successful season. We had a lot of fun and accomplished most of the goals we set.
“But I sure wish we’d gotten out of that fourth inning.”
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Sailors cruise to third at Districts
The sailing team ended its season with a third-place finish at last weekend’s Northwest District Team Racing Championships at Westsound, Orcas Island, winning six races and losing four in a double round-robin format.
Nine Bainbridge sailors – the maximum possible – competed in the two-day event. They included Emily Bruns, Brittain Mason, Ernest Bizzell, Logan Best, Blaine Ness, Peter Jowise, Garrett Linrothe, Abe Edholm and Molly Jackson.
“However, the accomplishments of these selected nine sailors are possible only because of the efforts of the entire Bainbridge team practicing together all season, and any victory or defeat belongs to the whole team,” said coach Susan Kaseler.
Oter team members were Marina Boleda, Anna Corke, Jenny Erickson, George Fleischfresser, Kacy Hamilton, Makai Magnuson, Peter Mann, Stuart Stringer and Katie Upton.
“When Bainbridge started well, the team was able to attain a winning combination,” Kaseler explained. “Particular exciting was the team’s last race, in which freshman Molly Jackson and crew Abe Edholm executed a perfect mark trap passback at the windward mark to take the team from a losing 1-5-6 combination to a winning and stable 1-2-4.”
She added, “Emily, Brittain and Ernest have anchored the team this season. Although the competition between schools is over for the year, they are spending two afternoons a week with the coaches, helping to develop the team for next year’s racing.”
