The college hoops season starts this week, and three Mount Si grads could take the floor. Valley fans, here’s how you can help support these three this week…..

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Rhett Workman

COVID-19 has, as you know, thrust college sports into a lot of flux this fall, with many football games, including this weekend’s Apple Cup, being canceled on account of positive cases involving college teams, and the remainder of the fall sports schedule in many conferences, including volleyball and soccer, being shifted to the spring. However, the college men’s basketball season is set to start this week despite all that, and with that will mark hopefully the college debuts for three 2020 Mount Si High School grads.

Former Wildcat stars Tyler Patterson, Jabe Mullins and Hayden Curtiss have all been working very hard, with the three freshmen slated perhaps to see an opportunity to play out of the gate in their inaugural college campaigns, Patterson with Montana State University, Mullins at St. Mary’s College in California and Curtiss at the University of Portland in Oregon.

Valley fans will have an opportunity to catch all three of these local athletes in action throughout the course of the season, and it all starts Wednesday. We will do our best to provide you a weekly schedule of the teams’ games, and how Valley fans will be able to catch them in action. Information for this will come from the colleges’ websites and also the schedule page at the website 506sports, which is a tremendous resource for you local sports fans to know what games are on TV in our area. A note though, and these schedules are subject to change due to COVID-19 concerns. If changes are made we will advise.

So with that, here we go.

Wednesday
St. Mary’s is scheduled to open its season in Sioux Falls, SD, at the Crossover Classic. The possible debut game for Mullins will come in the Gaels’ first game of the tournament on Wednesday, and you can see this in the afternoon – 1:30 p.m. – on ESPN. They will be playing the University of Memphis.

Patterson’s debut could also come Wednesday night, as Montana State opens its season with a non-conference game against the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in Las Vegas. It is a 6:30 tip with no TV broadcast scheduled, although the TuneIn radio app will have an audio stream – search UNLV for that. It might be a pay stream so be advised of that in advance.

Thanksgiving Day
The Gaels are scheduled to continue play on Turkey Day in the Crossover event, either at 9:00 am on ESPN in the semifinals or at 3:30 pm on ESPN2 in a consolation game.

“Black Friday”
Portland is scheduled to open their season Friday afternoon at home against the University of Idaho, meaning the possible college debut for Curtiss. Like with MSU’s game Wednesday, Portland will not televise their season opener, set to tip off at 4:00 p.m., but the games are being broadcast on Portland radio station KMTT-AM, which is available on TuneIn, search KMTT.

St. Mary’s also could have a game in the Crossover Classic depending on the previous game results; that is to be determined.

This weekend
Portland’s season-opening tournament continues with games Saturday against Kirkland’s Northwest University (4:00 p.m. tip) and Sunday against California NAIA school William Jessup University (1:00 p.m.). Jessup several years ago, from 2012-15, had on its roster a Mount Si grad – Justin Downer, so this is a program that might be familiar to a few of you. Same broadcast availability for these two games as will be for the opener – KMTT-AM radio will have a broadcast, but there is no local TV.

Upcoming
During the course of the season, games for the three teams will be televised, with that information available for you here each week. A general synopsis of what to expect:

Montana State: Big Sky games for the Bobcats will be normally webstreamed, via Pluto TV, a free app that you can download to your phone, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV or Google Chromecast device. Games will be free to view. Additional TV games for Montana State will be determined at a later date.

St. Mary’s and Portland: West Coast Conference games for both schools will be seen a couple of different ways – via national TV on ESPN and also regionally via both TV and webstreaming. The regional TV package will consist of Saturday afternoon games and be seen on regional sports cable networks up and down the West Coast, including Root Sports in our area, and the WCC Network will handle the webstreaming through the Stadium app, also available on phones and over-the-top devices. Additionally, Portland has announced several games, including their upcoming game with Montana State, will be televised via NBC Sports Northwest, a Portland-based regional sports network which is available locally in the Valley on Comcast digital cable.

As noted, we will have weekly looks at the schedules for all three teams with TV and radio broadcast information for local fans wishing to hop on and support their local athletes!!

Posted in Basketball, College Sports, Previews | Leave a comment

Mount Si baseball player makes college decision, and news from the pitch…..

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Rhett Workman

Good Monday morning. We start the short week this week leading up to turkey and pigskin on Thursday for Thanksgiving with news of a college commitment by a Mount Si High School baseball player.

Junior pitcher Jack Berg last night announced on Twitter his verbal commitment to attend and play for California State University-Bakersfield starting in the fall of 2022. Berg is the latest college commitment out of Mount Si’s program this year, after their foursome of Dawson Schneider, Cam Ferreri, Kevin Corder and Tyler Disch all signed with Yakima Valley Community College. Bakersfield is an NCAA Division I school, competing in the Big West Conference. In his Tweet announcing the commitment, Berg thanked his family, friends and coaches, and also indicated he was ready to go. “Can’t wait to go compete in the Big West,” he wrote.

Berg is likely to be a Wildcat varsity member this coming spring (2021) if there is a spring baseball season this school year unlike this past school year due to COVID-19. He is listed as among the top prospects on the West Coast out of a recent showcase with Perfect Game Baseball, so chances are good that we may not have heard the end of the college recruitment process with him. That all said, this verbal commitment is a solid one and at minimum ensures him a place to go if the recruiting process isn’t allowed to heat up significantly for him in 2021. As we have told you, the NCAA’s current Division I recruiting shutdown, imposed due to COVID-19 restrictions and resulting campus closures around the country, was recently extended to April 15 of next year.

A congrats to Jack and his family on this and we’ll look to reach out to him for some additional comments on this decision.

Also this morning:

Valley athlete part of college conference championship team
Clemson University’s men’s soccer team, which features a lower Valley athlete, yesterday took home some hardware – their college conference championship.

Clemson scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal in the 71st minute, and downed the University of Pittsburgh 2-1 at WakeMed Soccer Park just outside of Raleigh, NC. The victory netted the school its 15th conference championship in men’s soccer. Redshirt freshman Enrique Montana III, from Duvall and a 2019 Cedarcrest HS grad, is a defender for the Tigers but did not play in yesterday’s game.

Clemson finishes the season 8-2-1, 3-2-1 overall, and will play in the NCAA Tournament next spring; men’s soccer as you know is a fall sport but the NCAA opted to move the tournament to next spring as other college conferences shifted their fall sports except football to next spring.

A congrats to Enrique and his teammates from us here.

Posted in College Sports, On the Diamond, Soccer | Leave a comment

Sunday news….

Posted on November 22, 2020 by Rhett Workman

Good Sunday morning. We hit the football field this morning and a Valley athlete was a hero yesterday for his college football squad, making the play of the game to help his team pull out a win.

Redshirt sophomore Jesiah Irish, from North Bend and a 2018 Mount Si HS grad, spent the entire game yesterday for Oregon State University playing on their special teams unit for punts and kickoffs and what not. Well, in crunch time, he made some magic yesterday in the Beavers’ game against the University of California at home in Corvallis, OR. With around five minutes left in the game and OSU trailing, the visiting Bears were forced to punt. That punt attempt was blocked by Irish, and that set up an offensive series for the Beavers that ended with what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown in the 31-27 Oregon State win.

The victory was their first of the season and comes in advance of the annual “Civil War” battle against the University of Oregon this coming Friday in Eugene.

A great job by Irish in this one, that’s for sure. Also:

Huskies win: The University of Washington took a 37-0 lead after three and ended up needing to hold on for a 44-27 win over the University of Arizona last night at Husky Stadium in Seattle to move to 2-0 on the season. Mount Si High School grad Jack Westover, from North Bend, played for the UW and caught one pass for nine yards in this one as the Huskies got set for what they hope will be an Apple Cup clash with Washington State this coming Friday in Pullman. The game is scheduled to be a night game pending COVID-19 issues involving the Cougars which forced their game to be canceled last night with Stanford.

Softball: Success for Puyallup team in Texas
The Puyallup-based AI Bandits Breer 16U team, with players from Kingco and Wesco Conference high schools, have finished play at the weekend Triple Crown Sports City of Lights event down in Houston and it proved to be successful.

Breer finished up the tournament earlier this morning in style, with pitcher Tess Bumiller, a junior from Bear Creek School in Redmond, tossing a no-hitter for the Bandits in their 3-1 win over the Clovis Rockets Gold from central California. Bumiller had five strikeouts in the masterpiece for Breer as they went 6-1 on the weekend.

The no-hitter was the second in as many games for the local ladies; they finished up their play yesterday with a combined no-no delivered by both Bumiller and teammate Yanina Sherwood, from Jackson High School in Mill Creek. That came in a 7-0 Bandit win over the E1 Prospects squad, also from California. In other games yesterday, the Bandits got a homer from Eatonville’s Hailey Rath in a 6-1 win over the California-based Firecrackers Kimura team and also suffered their lone loss of the weekend, falling in a pitcher’s duel to the Houston-area Texas Dirt Divas 1-0. In that game, Lake Washington’s Lilly Bean, one of the Kingco representatives on the Breer squad, had two hits.

The Bandits were one of several Washington teams that had orignially committed to play in the event, but a number of the other local squads opted out of the tournament, leaving the Bandits and a team from Spokane as the lone Evergreen State reps in the event.

Posted in College Sports, Football, On the Diamond | Leave a comment

News on a Saturday……

Posted on November 21, 2020 by Rhett Workman

Good Saturday morning. Some football news for you on a Saturday. Three members of Mount Si High School’s football program are making news this morning.

First, let’s talk about linebacker Cameron Set-Chan. The Wildcat junior got a chance to hit the gridiron last night, playing for the Heir Football Academy team in a game against a club team in Arizona. Heir, a locally-based academy, put together this team, consisting of top Puget Sound-area high school football players, giving them a chance to compete during Washington State’s high school and youth sports shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We do not have information for you on how Set-Chan did in the game, but suffice it to say, the opportunity for him to put the pads on and play was certainly welcome for him and his family. If we get word on how he did, we’ll let you know.

Also, two other players – Set-Chan’s junior classmates Carson Clay and Sam West – both received invites to a national combine event being run by the Polynesian Bowl organization, to be held in Las Vegas December 12 and 13. Both players made the announcements on Twitter yesterday, with both looking forward to the opportunity to see and be seen.

Good stuff for sure from Mount Si’s squad, as players stay as busy as possible despite the current shutdowns.

Now, let’s shift out of state. A pair of teams we featured in a recent preview of top out-of-state teams you should follow during the high school football playoffs around the western United States both took home hardware yesterday.

It all started in the afternoon in Utah, as Corner Canyon High School, from the Salt Lake City suburb of Draper, blasted rival Lone Peak, from near Provo, 45-7, to win their third straight Utah state big-school “6A” classification high school football title, and their 40th straight game. Corner’s offense and defense dominated the early portion of play, were able to get a 31-0 halftime lead then cruise to the win led by top players Jaxson Dart, Noah Kjar, Jett Meine and others.

The win closed out a successful, yet challenging season for the Chargers, as they dealt with a number of distractions along the way, namely their school being thrust from in-person to remote learning for a time back in September and October due to the COVID-19 pandemic and rising case counts on the 3,000-plus student campus and having one of their teachers, Charri Jensen, hospitalized after serious complications from the virus.

A congrats to the Corner Canyon program, players, their parents, friends and fans on this achievement.

From there, we head to Billings, MT, where last night, Missoula’s Sentinel High School, aided by a former Washington high school player, picked up their first Montana state big-school “AA” high school football title in nearly 50 years, winning a road test against fellow unbeaten Billings West High School, 24-15, to finish the season 10-0.

Aiding in the efforts was Camden Sirmon. The senior QB is a former Wenatchee High School athlete, having transferred from there over this summer to Sentinel due to Washington’s shutdown, one of several high school football players from our state to make that move during the course of the summer and fall. Sirmon threw for over 100 yards passing and a touchdown as he teamed with fellow QB Dayton Bay to get the job done for the Spartans, who won the title playing in their first title game in over 35 years, so a pair of long droughts were broken last night for the Missoula program.

Tremendous accomplishment for those boys, and we offer our congrats to Sirmon and teammates on their accomplishment as well. We’d guess Wenatchee and all of Chelan County is proud of you, Camden, and frankly, all of Washington as well. Good luck next fall, wherever that takes you.

Also, from the diamond:

Softball
Puyallup team with Kingco athletes dominates on day one in Texas: Puyallup’s AI Bandits Breer 16U squad made waves down at a tournament in Houston yesterday, outscoring foes by a combined count of 34-3 in going 3-0 on the event’s opening day.

Breer beat teams from California, Colorado and Texas in the first day of the Triple Crown Sports-sponsored City of Lights tournament, featuring teams from all over the country including a couple of others from Washington.

Lake Washington’s Lily Bean had a hit and two RBI’s, and Inglemoor’s Gabi Toney also had a hit, scored two runs and drove in another in the Bandits’ signature win yesterday, a 17-1 blowout of the Arkansas Valley Bandits from La Junta, CO, in the southeast part of the state. The win featured a no-hitter from Breer pitchers Tess Bumiller, from Redmond’s Bear Creek School, and Yanina Sherwood, from Mill Creek’s Jackson High School. Bean also homered in AI’s nightcap win, an 8-1 result over El Paso’s Texas Boom Elite.

The event continues through this weekend.

Posted in Football, On the Diamond | Leave a comment

Mount Si football player gets a chance to hit the gridiron tonight….in the desert…..and local fans have opportunity to support him

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Rhett Workman

We have some news into the Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal newsroom, of an opportunity for local high school football fans to see one of their own in action tonight.

Heir Football, a locally-based team formed to give top Washington state high school players an opportunity to play during our state’s high school sports shutdown, will be playing a game tonight against a team called Winner Circle Athletics down in Arizona. Mount Si High School junior football player Cameron Set-Chan, who is a linebacker, is listed on the roster tonight for Heir and is expected to play in the game.

Heir has arranged for a YouTube webstream of the game, which is set to kick off at 6:30 our time. That is below.

It is not known if Heir will have additional games on their upcoming schedule, but if they do, we’ll be sure to let you know.

If you can, please watch the broadcast and support Cameron and his teammates.

Posted in Football | Leave a comment