Coach Joe Klein doesn’t mince his words when he looks at the gaping hole graduation has left in the White River High wrestling room.
With virtually the whole team returning, first-year coach Rich Valdez walks into the White River High girls wrestling room with high expectations for the coming season.
Another year brings another season of high expectations for the girls of the White River High basketball team.
It would be difficult for members of the Enumclaw High gymnastics team not to have pretty high expectations heading into the season.
Just when wrestling fans started memorizing the 14 weight classifications, the National Federation of State High School Associations Wrestling Rules Committee switched them.
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” It’s the slogan Enumclaw High wrestlers picked for their team T-shirts this season.
Travis Filleau was the Sumner High School wrestling team’s sole contender at the state 2A tournament in the 2010-2011 season.
The 103-weight-class grappler’s achievement was doubly impressive considering he was a freshman, though he lost his first two matches and was bounced from the tourney early.
Diver Erica Bonthuis closed out her senior year with the Enumclaw High team with a ninth-place finish at the state meet Saturday.
The White River High volleyball squad improved on last year’s performance to place fourth in the Class 2A state tournament contested at Evergreen State College during the Veteran’s Day weekend.
With memories of finishing eighth in the tournament in 2010, the predominantly senior White River crew started this year’s show by edging Archbishop Murphy High 15-25, 25-17, 21-25, 25-15 and, in a nail-biting sudden death set, 15-9.
“White River was a really solid team against us,” Archbishop Murphy coach Jeff Curtis said, noting the difference between White River and his team was that the Hornets were flexible enough to make the necessary adjustments.
The Enumclaw High volleyball squad, which overcame considerable odds to earn a berth into the weekend’s state Class 3A tournament at St. Martin’s University and Timberline High in Lacey, got off to a rocky start and never fully recovered.
Against a highly favored Eastside Catholic squad Friday morning, Enumclaw was swept in three consecutive sets, making an early shuffle to the left side of the bracket. Once there, the Hornets couldn’t survive long enough to play any Saturday matches in the double elimination proceedings.
Enumclaw showed poise under fire as in the initial set against formidable Eastside Catholic, the score was tied at 22-22. At that point, Hornet setter Hannah Morris attempted to dig a rocket sent over the net by Eastside Catholic’s Kameron McLain and in the process strained a wrist ligament. With that, Morris was out of commission for the remainder of the tournament.
Perfect timing on a green-flag pit stop helped Kasey Kahne cruise past the checkered flag before NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Carl Edwards Sunday in the Kobalt Tools 500 from Phoenix International Raceway.
It was the Enumclaw driver’s 12th victory in 287 NASCAR Sprint Cup races and his first win since September 2009. The win on the recently reconfigured Arizona race track ended an 81-race dry spell for Kahne.
“It was a big win for the whole Red Bull team,” Kahne said in post-race comments. “All our guys did an awesome job. To win on a track like this, it was technical at times. Early in the race, it was different than any time I’ve been on it.
“It was just different,” said Kahne of the track changes. “We had to work on the car as the rubber came on the track, then it started changing more. It was a hard-fought day. The Red Bull team did a great job with the pit stops and the adjustments throughout the race to get us back to the front, just put us in position to have a shot.”
When the waves calmed at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way Saturday, it was the Sumner Spartans that made a splash – hefting a 2A third-place state swim and dive championship trophy over their heads, wearing a number of medals around their necks and touting bragging rights to two Sumner High school records.
The Spartans fought hard for their third-place hardware.
“They were awesome!” coach Dana Powers said. “Everyone gave each race their all. Overall, as a team, they finished strong.”
Sumner battled Sehome and Squalicum head-to-head through the night.
The evening started with a bang, as the 200-yard medley relay set a school record on its way to a second-place finish. Alicia Ditty, Ashley Huynh, Madison Munger and Sami Hendricks raced to a 1-minute, 53.74-second finish behind Squalicum, bettering their own Sumner High record set in preliminaries Friday.
When the Sumner High girls soccer squad hosted Archbishop Murphy in the Class 2A state quarterfinals at Sunset Chev Stadium Saturday, the soccer faithful who showed up from both camps definitely got their money’s worth as they watched a tandem of offensive-minded contingents going at it for 80 minutes of nonstop action.
In the end, Sumner saw its season come to an end with a 1-0 loss.
The Spartan booters, who easily captured the South Puget Sound League 2A crown with a 12-0 mark, encountered a mirror image of themselves – an aggressive crew constantly on the attack.
Fortunately for the Spartans they were blessed with defenders like Sarah Carter and freshman netminder Jaimie Lange, who was responsible for at least a half dozen shutouts in her maiden voyage in the Spartan goal.
Sumner finally relinquished a score with 17 minutes remaining in the wild affair. Archbishop Murphy’s Cali Crisler slammed a corner kick and senior midfielder Kelly Gould accurately knocked in the game’s only goal.
Last year’s SPSL 2A MVP, Sumner junior striker Kaylie Rozell, very nearly worked some of her magic to knot the game when she legged a fireball toward the Wildcat webbing with 12 minutes remaining. Her attempt sailed over the top of the goal and that proved to be the last, best chance for Sumner to tie.
Sumner earned its way into the quarterfinal bid against Archbishop Murphy when it squeaked out a 1-0 victory over Hockinson at Sunset Chev Stadium Nov. 8. The Spartans scored the meeting’s single tally with one minute remaining in the battle, when they staged an all-out assault on the Hockinson goalie. Rozell scuttled off an assist to senior midfielder and co-captain Megan Fenton, who rocketed in the difference maker for the clutch 1-0 Spartan conquest.