January 2015

by Paul Moseley

The best all-around team in West Seattle and the leader in the Metro Conference put on a clinic tonight as the Wildcat girls basketball team beat the Bainbridge Spartans handily 76-25 at West Seattle High School. The Wildcats, 11-2 overall and 8-0 in the conference, dominated the game from the outset, allowing the full roster to contribute to the victory.

The details of the game are pretty irrelevant.

The Wildcats won big, and the Spartans kept their head up the entire game and fought for every point they could get. Paige Brigham, a Senior, was took home the high scorer honors for Bainbridge with eight points. The more compelling story is the experience of watching this team play. They demonstrate focus and drive from the opening tip to the final buzzer, and there is a wealth of talent on the floor to keep even lopsided games entertaining.

By Anastasia Stepankowsky

Chief Sealth swimmers Austin Burnham and Jhonry Reynoso qualified for the district championships, but there wasn’t too much else for the combined Chief Sealth/West Seattle to celebrate in Friday’s meet against Garfield High School.

Bullfrog swimmers won all 11 events at the Southwest Pool. The results aren’t surprising, as Garfield dropped down from 4A to 3A for the 2014-2015 school year.

Burnham qualified for districts in the 100-yard breaststroke, shaving .44 off his time to clock an even 1.13.00. He also qualified for the Metro Championships in the 200-yard-IM, improving by a little over seven seconds.

Reynoso qualified for districts in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1.06.00 seconds and the Metro championships in the 100-yard butterfly.

“It felt really good to actually make it,” Reynoso said about his district qualifying time in the backstroke.

He said he still needs to speed up his arm stroke and improve his kicking technique. If he takes another nine seconds off his time in the 100-yard breaststroke, Reynoso will qualify for the state championships.

By Tim Clinton
SPORTS EDITOR

Thursday, Jan. 15
Wrestling
Highline 46, Hazen 29
Highline continued its winning ways Thursday by pinning a Seamount League loss on the Highlanders of Hazen.
Kennedy 42, Evergreen 36
The Lancers edged Evergreen in Seamount League action Thursday.
Kennedy 52, Tyee 12
Kennedy Catholic also defeated the Tyee portion of the Evergreen/Tyee team Thursday.
Federal Way 60, Mt. Rainier 22
Mount Rainier was topped by the Eagles on Thursday.

Boys swimming
Evergreen/Tyee/Highline
Lindbergh defeated all three members of the combined Evergreen/Tyee/Highline team Thursday.
The Eagles outdistanced Highline by a 101-59 score, defeated Tyee, 142-3, and Evergreen, 142-0.
Mount Rainier 93, Puyallup 77
The Rams rallied to sink the Vikings in Thursday action.

Wednesday, Jan. 14
Boys basketball
Evergreen 58, Tyee 47
Evergreen topped the Totems on Wednesday.
Kennedy 68, Foster 53
The Lancers were winners against the Bulldogs this past Wednesday.
Renton 57, Highline 49

An 18 year old woman was crossing Delridge Way SW westbound on Orchard Street SW around 3:30pm on Jan 16 as a late 90's BMW driven by a middle aged man attempted to turn left on Delridge Way. The sun, at a low angle may have made it difficult to see her but he clipped the back of her leg, possibly fracturing it.

Photojournalist David Rosen coincidentally was there across the street with his fiance Kendra McLeod and rather than take photos he came to the aid of the victim, comforting her as McLeod called 911.

Seattle police and AMR ambulance arrived in minutes as the victim was kept calm. The driver pulled over into the adjacent gas station immediately and was being questioned by police as the victim was prepped and taken the hospital. She was in stable condition with a possible leg fracture.

By Ed Shepherd
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT

The lead was all Mount Rainier's, all four quarters, until the final nine seconds of the game Tuesday, when Tahoma's Ryan Best made one of two free throws to tie the game, 37-37.

After a long three-point shot missed off glass by the Rams, for the win, at the buzzer, it meant the game was going to overtime, and the visiting Bears won, 42-38, in it.

Should have been over long before overtime, in regulation, as the Rams' 6-foot, 4-inch forward, Malcolm Cola, finished off a nice drive to the basket while getting fouled. He made two free throws from the line and that Rams led, 37-30, with 3:00 left in the fourth quarter.

"Should have been over," said Rams' coach Ken Bush. "We're young, a team full of sophomores and juniors."

The Rams dropped to 3-11 overall and stayed 1-3 in the South Puget Sound League Northwest Division since this was not a division game.

"We just don't know how to win. That's probably the seventh game this season we've been in that same situation, leading in the game. We don't execute. We get tight. We do things that are uncharacteristic, not winning plays."

BY GERARDO BOLONG
Contributing Writer

Alexis Sata of Tyee led Highline School District athletes with a third place all-around score of 26 in a gymnastics meet at the Tyee Educational Complex in SeaTac on Tues., Jan. 13.

Hazen High School scored 130.2 team points to outdistance Evergreen of White Center (101.75) and also defeat host Tyee (85.55).

Sata won the uneven parallel bars at 6.5 while capturing third places on the vault (8.1) and the floor exercise (6.4). The Totem athlete's 5.0 on the balance beam placed her in the fifth spot.

"We have lots of new gymnats," long-time Tyee head coach Gordan Kadric said. "They work very hard and compete like champions."

The Highlanders of Hazen took the high road to capture four of the top five AA placings while dominating team scores on each individual event.

Kirsten Timm earned top spot on the vault at 8.3 to go along with second places on the bars (6.1), beam (6.7) and floor (6.9) en route to an All-around championship total of 28.

Teammate Lizzie Platin won the beam at 7.2 while taking fourth spots on the vault (7.8), bars (5.4) and floor (6.75) as part of her 26.75 fourth place All-around.

By Ed Shepherd
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT

Foster is experiencing some hard knocks in wrestling, having just lost 14 of 14 wrestling matches -- with12 of the weight-class losses by forfeit from sickness and injury, mostly -- against Lindbergh on Thursday.

"This year's been really tough," said Bulldogs wrestling coach Patrick Kalalau. "Last week, we were hit with the flu's. And, this week, injuries to kids."

The Bulldogs' Mark Schenck did wrestle on this day, in the 138-pound weight class, but if it was this time last week, he wouldn't have wrestled.

"I had ringworm last week. It's a real nasty skin rash. It's not good when you get it but it goes around in wrestling," said Schenck. "You put on an antifungal cream and let it dry a week, and it won't spread."

One more Bulldogs wrestler was almost not wrestling on this night either.

Former captain of the Ballard High School Basketball team, Brad Baker, is jumpstarting youth basketball in North Seattle by being head coach of the new Ballard Youth Basketball program.

BYB aims to bring together players in seventh through eighth grade with all skill levels from Ballard, Magnolia, Fremont, Queen Anne and Phinney Ridge communities.

“Ideally, this is supposed to be a feeder program. In a perfect world we would have kids from every single age group all playing with other kids their own age so they get to know their teammates by the time they get to BHS,” said Baker.

But there is no such program until BYB was started. The program is designed to start kids out playing together before they get to high school so that they already know their potential teammates and have experience playing with them.

Bakers said that BYB fills a needed experience for players that other schools have already established.

The City of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools today announced the first year results of their Creative Advantage arts education initiative. The program succeeded in closing the access gap in arts education for students in the initial roll out area of the Central District. For 2015, the program will expand to include ten more schools in the district.

The Creative Advantage is a unique public-private partnership between the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), Seattle Public Schools (SPS) and The Seattle Foundation. It is reinvesting in Seattle's students and our community's economic and creative future by addressing inequities in access to the arts and restoring arts education to all Seattle classrooms.

Traffic congestion that has jammed up the West Seattle Bridge in the past few days with truck traffic trying to get to container terminals has gotten the attention of drivers and city officials too. Now the union that represents the longshore workers in Seattle has come forward offering a simple solution to break up the daytime traffic mess outside the container terminals: open the gates at night.

In a press release on the issue the union said:

"Though the Port of Seattle has been cooperating with Mayor Murray and the City of Seattle to alleviate some of the congestion, Jason Gross, ILWU Local 19 Vice President elaborates on opening the port gates at night, something other ports routinely do.

“The terminal operators, including Stevedoring Services of America at T18, need to immediately address the daytime traffic problems in Seattle by shifting operations to service trucks at night as well as days. It really is that simple,” says Gross.