With a multitude of returning state-participating swimmers and divers, the Enumclaw High team expects to better last season’s Top 20 state finish.
This year’s White River High boys basketball team will be leaving its fate in the hands of a threesome of guards in senior sharpshooters Billy Kiel and Jason Tyler along with junior distributor Alex Sayler.
If all it took was having plenty of tall young men to be a successful basketball squad in the highly competitive South Puget Sound League 3A, Enumclaw would be set to jet straight to the state tournament.
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.
