With both the Nathan Hale and Bainbridge baseball teams needing to win Friday’s game to advance to post-season play, there was no lack of excitement from either dugout.
The soccer team came up just short in its bid to capture the Metro League title, falling 2-1 to Blanchet on Thursday. The loss dropped the Spartans to third and set up a first-round playoff game on Monday at 3:30 p.m. at Memorial Stadium against Hale.
A win against Hale would set up a Wednesday afternoon game with Metro runner-up Seattle Prep. A loss would end the team’s season, which featured an undefeated April following an undistinguished 2-2-2 mark in March.
The boys 4×400 relay team set a new school record to highlight Saturday’s South Kitsap Invitational – but it’s not likely to last long.
With Luke Speidel running 50 seconds flat in the first leg, the team began the race with a huge lead and clocked 3:27.1 to break the previous Spartan standard by more than two seconds.
Like many other islanders, Josh Anderson enjoyed watching the women’s downhill ski race during the recent Winter Olympics.
But Anderson, who turned 18 last month, had a special interest in the competition: he’d raced virtually the same course during the Utah Winter Games in December.
“It was cool watching it during the Olympics,” he said. “It’s an awesome course and I said to myself, ‘I did that.’
What soccer coach Alex von Reis Crooks termed “a far-too-physical ‘friendly’” (a non-league game) ended in a 2-2 tie at Eastlake on Thursday.
Bainbridge jumped out to a 2-0 lead, scoring in the 20th minute on Adam Brenneman’s direct kick after a penalty and in the 43rd minute on Kaj Hauschulz’s goal, assisted by Mitka von Reis Crooks.
Eastlake, one of the leading teams in the 4A Kingco League, tied the score on a pair of penalty kicks, though von Reis Crooks was critical of both calls.
The Spartan baseball team rode a six-run fifth inning to defeat Ballard 8-4 on Thursday, but fell victim to a five-run Blanchet outburst on Tuesday and dropped a 6-3 decision.
“The toughest part of our schedule should be over,” said coach Jayson Gore, as many observers feel that Ballard and Blanchet, along with Seattle Prep – to whom the Spartans lost on Monday – are Bainbridge’s chief Metro rivals.
The fastpitch team swung to extremes on successive days, losing 12-2 at West Seattle on Tuesday before annihilating Cleveland 17-2 at home on Wednesday for the team’s first Metro League win. Both games were called after five innings due to the 10-run rule.
“What happened today should have happened yesterday,” said coach Steve Nelson after Wednesday’s game. “West Seattle is almost the same as Cleveland. They just had better pitching, and we played that game on Astroturf. Our infielders had a hard time fielding the ball, and they became tentative.”
Helen and Emily Silver both qualified for the 2004 Olympic Trials at last week’s spring US Senior National Swimming Championships at the University of Minnesota.
Helen celebrated her 18th birthday by placing sixth in the 100 meter backstroke on Friday, clocking a lifetime best 1:04.31.
The Bainbridge Island Rowing Club’s Junior Men’s Novice Four won its heat at Saturday’s 40th Annual Green Lake Spring Regatta and posted the overall fastest time in its category to highlight BIRC’s first-ever competition.
Two games termed “very winnable” by fastpitch coach Steve Nelson went the other way as the Spartans lost 7-4 at Blanchet on Friday, then dropped Monday’s home opener to Seattle Prep 5-3.
“These games aren’t won, they’re lost,” said Nelson. “We had Blanchet on the ropes, but we gave the game away. Mental errors just killed us.”
Like hundreds of island kids before him, Houston Wade began playing baseball in the Little League T-ball program, then progressed through the minors and eventually the Majors league.
Three years in Babe Ruth followed, but then heredity threw a high hard one at the youngster.
“When I was 15, I hit a growth spurt,” Wade said. “I grew 13 inches in a year.”
At that point, he stood six feet, four inches, yet weighed just 118 pounds – “I had no speed, no mass, no anything.”
Not surprisingly, he wasn’t recruited for the Spartan baseball team.
The Bainbridge Island Rowing Club is about to make a bit of history.
BIRC – a non-profit organization founded last year – will enter five junior crews in Saturday’s Green Lake Spring Sprints. That marks the club’s competitive debut against established junior crews, and is the first of what may be as many as five spring regattas.
There was no doubt in girls lacrosse coach Tami Tommila’s mind about the crucial moment in Friday’s season-opening 8-7 home loss to defending state champion Lakeside.
E-Wallet Purchase (Add Funds)
Term Subscription