It’s another round of hardwood previews and picks on a Friday, with Mount Si meeting Eastlake and Cedarcrest meeting M-P….

Posted on January 17, 2020 by Rhett Workman

Good Friday morning. We’ll try to wrap up some Cedarcrest High School girls’ wrestling for you soon, but we have another round of Friday hardwood previews and picks for you as we head into our first three-day weekend of the decade, the MLK holiday weekend. Both Mount Si and Cedarcrest will be hitting the hardwood hopefully tonight for the first time since last Friday thanks to games getting canceled earlier this week because of the snow. The Wildcat boys and girls are at Eastlake while the Red Wolves boys and girls play Marsyville-Pilchuck. Girls are home and the boys are on the road tonight up north. We went 4-0 last week and are 7-1 overall in our hardwood picks thus far so let’s get you another round this Friday. Girls first as always.

GIRLS
Mount Si Wildcats @ Eastlake Wolves, Eastlake HS, Sammamish, 6:30 – It’s been surprisingly a bit of a struggle this year for Eastlake. A team that was expected to be a Kingco and maybe state title favorite this year has been challenged a little bit, and are sitting at just .500 at 6-6. They and the Wildcats met December 18 at Mount Si, and the Wolves were lucky to escape with a 55-52 win over a very scrappy, Sela Heide-less Wildcat crew. Heide’s back tonight, so things could be a lot different for Eastlake in this one.

Big names in this one for the home side are senior Keeli Burton and junior Haley Huard (yes, she’s a Huard). Both led Eastlake in scoring in the previous game, Huard – in front of her family – a game-high 20 and Burton with 12. So we’d look for those two to get the load of the offensive opportunities again for the Wolves. Feature matchup tonight will be Burton, bound for Arizona State in the fall, against unsigned but likely D-I’er Heide in the post. As we discussed Monday in the athlete of the week writeup, we suspect Heide’s minutes will be limited as she works her way back to game strength. It was a fantastic article the other day in the Seattle Times by the great Sandy Ringer which described what the Wildcat senior post was working back from. You know about ACL tears being a bugaboo for girls athletes and their knees, well, how about as many dislocations as Heide’s had in hers? Yikes. So with that in mind, sophomore Lauren Glaizer’s going to continue to shoulder some of the load against Burton, and she did hold her own that night, with 17 leading the Wildcats.

So this is a matchup tonight that is going to be a good one. Considering how close the game was without Sela in the fold last time out, we think tonight will be the first night Heide’s presence on the floor makes a difference in this one. Eastlake has picked up the pace as of late with two straight wins following a four-game losing streak out of their win against the Wildcats back in December. But it all changes tonight. We’re taking the upset here. Mount Si 55, Eastlake 53

Cedarcrest Red Wolves vs. Marysville-Pilchuck Tomahawks, Cedarcrest HS, 7:15 – The Red Wolves thanks to the lousy weather haven’t had much in the way of games or practices this week, but they did get one in yesterday so the rust should be a non-issue tonight for CHS as they host the struggling Tomahawks, who will be coming in off a 73-22 loss, yes, 73-22, to Meadowdale last night. M-P is struggling, winless in league and 2-10 overall, so another opportunity here for the Cedarcrest ladies, led by sophomore Kat Townley, who scored 18 points last Friday in their win over Oak Harbor, to pick up a win over a 3A conference foe to enhance their Northwest playoff RPI ranking. Seniors Lauren Lewis, Kelsey and Alissa Edge lead Pilchuck. Cedarcrest 60, M-P 35

BOYS
Cedarcrest Red Wolves @ Marysville-Pilchuck Tomahawks, Marysville-Pilchuck HS, Marysville, 7:15 – The Red Wolves head up to meet a Pilchuck team that is among the top teams in the conference, so a good test for a CHS team tonight that can definitely use a strong performance regardless of the result to show people that they’ll be a tough beat in postseason. That said, this Pilchuck team is senior-laden and as such will themselves be a tough beat tonight. Post T.J. Severn, wings Aaron Kalab and Treven Southard, and guard Parker Deverux are among the seniors to watch for the Tomahawks, who are 5-0 in league and 9-2 overall. CHS for its part coming off their win last Friday over Oak Harbor is holding its own, 3-1 in Wesco and 6-4 overall, so they’ll definitely look to give the home side a test in this one. Senior Nicolo Cammarano leads CHS and will need to lead the way tonight for the team to be in position to win. M-P 70, Cedarcrest 55

Mount Si Wildcats @ Eastlake Wolves, Eastlake HS, Sammamish, 8:00* (*Game to tip about 10-15 minutes after conclusion of girls game) – The two teams finish their Kingco Crest Division season series tonight. The Wildcats won the opening meeting December 17 at home in Snoqualmie before the holiday break by the comfortable score of 70-41, but tonight is a road game and Mount Si does have some rust to fight off after having had very limited practices this week due to the snow and resulting school closures. You know the leaders in this one for the Wildcats. Mullins and Patterson.

Jabe Mullins scored 23 points that night and Tyler Patterson added 20. The two lead the team in scoring, combining as a pair for nearly 38 points a game (Mullins with approximately 20 and Patterson with approximately 17), and both led the way last Friday for MSHS in their win over Woodinville. Again, look for those two to get it done tonight.

Matt Thompson scored 14 to lead Eastlake in the previous meeting while Will Woodward added 12. These two lead the Wolves in scoring, Woodward averaging 15 points a game while Thompson’s averaging 12 per night. Mount Si’s defense, led by senior Hayden Curtiss, will need to shut these two down tonight to have success.

The Wildcats remain unbeaten in league play and we’d look for that to continue in this one. Mount Si 65, Eastlake 50

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News from the mat, the hardwood and the diamond on a snowy Thursday…..

Posted on January 16, 2020 by Rhett Workman

Good Thursday morning. So, once again, weather will be the story today as to whether Valley high school athletic events are impacted by any school delays/closures. Today, it’s wrestling with all of the Mount Si and Cedarcrest High School teams in action.

Speaking of the mat, Cedarcrest’s boys had a solid showing up at the King of the Mountain tournament this past Saturday in Darrington. Three weight-class winners propelled the Red Wolves to a third-place team finish, scoring 116.5 points and finishing behind Eatonville and former Cascade Conference rival South Whidbey for the top spots in the event.

Red Wolve weight class winners included Evan Reid (138), Rylan McPhee (220) and Hayden Dill (132). Reid took his crown by technical fall over Concrete’s Robert Reed, while McPhee won an 8-0 decision over Eatonville’s Chris Vaninetti to take his division and Dill pinned South Whidbey’s Drew Aposhyan to grab his title.

Four others – Bryant Reid (120), Gabe Arroyo (106), Dallas Carrier (160) and Mac Miles (195) – all finished in third-place ties in their respective weight classes. Miles and Red Wolve teammate Andrew Weiker battled in a loser-out match at 195 for that share of third place, with Miles winning the match by pin.

A total of 18 wrestlers competed for CHS, so plenty of kids got plenty of work on the mat during the event. The Red Wolves went 18-26 overall in individual matches in the tournament with 12 of those wins coming by pin and one more – the aforementioned Reid crown-clincher at 138 – coming by technical fall.

Also this morning:

College basketball: MSHS grad continues to chip in for college men’s team
Freshman Brett Williams continues to play a valuable role off the bench in his first college season for Pacific Lutheran University’s men’s basketball squad. He played nine minutes of the game on Tuesday for the Lutes against Tacoma city rival Puget Sound and scored two points and added a rebound, helping PLU grab a 75-65 win over the Loggers. He is getting minutes off the bench for PLU, who is 6-8 on the season, and is averaging around two points a contest with a small number of other stats including rebounds, assists and steals. The Lutes are down in Salem, OR, Saturday night meeting Willamette University.

Williams is from North Bend and is a 2019 MSHS grad.

Softball: Central Washington’s coaching staff to have a big Valley flavor to it
Last month when we reported here about Central Washington University having hired former Redmond High School coach Allison Mitchell to coach the NCAA Division II’s softball program this spring, we suggested it would be good news for Valley high school players and others within the Kingco Conference. Well, she has hired her staff, and it’s going to have a big Valley flavor to it, as both a Mount Si and Cedarcrest High School grad will each be part of it.

First, the Mount Si part of the staff. We have learned that Traci Tawney has been hired by Mitchell as one of her assistants. Tawney, a former Wildcat softball assistant and 1999 Mount Si HS alum who spent nearly a decade coaching Lake Washington High School’s team and helping produce several top college players including one-time CWU player Taylor Ferleman and NCAA Division I Boise State’s Tori Bivens, will join Mitchell on staff to further increase the Kingco flavor of the new program. Tawney guided LW this past spring to a top finish in Kingco 3A, which had been a custom for a long time in the conference. She is from Fall City.

Now, the CHS part. Duvall’s Kailyn Campbell will be Mitchell’s lead assistant on the squad. Campbell, who graduated from Cedarcrest HS several years ago and went on to have one of the greatest careers any Central player has ever had in school history, will be coaching for the first time. She hit better than .400 and clubbed over 30 homers in her Central career, which for much of it was spent alongside fellow Valleyite Celine (Fowler) Huerta, from North Bend. She played one pro season in Europe.

Good stuff for sure and we are excited for the season ahead. Go Central!

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More crummy weather means more high school sports cancellations

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Rhett Workman

We have another round of weather-caused schedule changes tonight for local high school athletic events to report to you.

First, for Mount Si. The postponed boys’ basketball game with Bothell was set to be made up tonight as part of a doubleheader with the regularly-scheduled girls’ basketball game between the Wildcats and Cougars. Well, both of those games have been postponed and now will be made up as a doubleheader on January 25, a Saturday, with the game times being 6:30 p.m. for the girls and 8:00 p.m. for the boys.

The Wildcats’ gymnastics meet tonight, at Inglemoor High School in Kenmore, has also been postponed with no word on a reschedule for that competition.

Cedarcrest has also had a cancellation tonight – the scheduled Red Wolve girls’ basketball game at Stanwood was canceled with a makeup for that scheduled for Monday, January 27, also at Stanwood with a tip of 7:15 p.m.

As you may be aware, high winds are now beginning to move through the Valley, especially the upper parts around Snoqualmie and North Bend, with the National Weather Service having issued a high wind warning that is expected to expire later this evening. The wind gusts are forecast to hit around 50-60 miles per hour and are likely to result in power outages and other possible damage around the area which could once again impact school schedules – and athletic events – tomorrow, so if we are able, we’ll advise on those things both here and on our Twitter feed @snovalleysports.

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The Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal’s weekly club volleyball report for January 15

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Rhett Workman

Good Wednesday morning. We’ll try to catch up on some college stuff from the past few days later today, but a note and continued foul weather could impact tonight’s basketball games for Mount Si and Cedarcrest so if they do we’ll advise. Same for the Wildcat gymnastics meet.

However, it is Wednesday and that means it’s time for our weekly segment as we look at the goings on inside USA Volleyball’s Puget Sound Region and how Valley girls’ high school volleyball players and their club teams are faring.

The weekend that was
This past weekend wrapped up the preseason seeding portion of action for the region, as teams were slotted into place for the opening of regular season play at the end of this month.

U14 and U15 teams got their seeding action in, and there were some solid results to report involving players tied to Mount Si High School’s program.

We’ll start with the Bellevue-based Sudden Impact U15 Lightning, which feature Mount Si varsity freshman Friley Curtiss. SI came into the seeding weekend ranked as the top team in the age group, and they showed why they deserved said top ranking, as they proceeded to beat three South Sound-area teams, two in sweeps, at the Kitsap Pavilion location in Bremerton. It looks as if the Lightning are going to be a team to watch all season, and that is good news for Wildcat fans as it looks once again like a number of Mount Si varsity players are finding themselves on high-level clubs this season in club play.

We mentioned this last week as well with the U16 group and players Katrice Dunn, Kira Holmberg and Bailey Showalter with Kent Juniors (Holmberg/Dunn) and Sudden Impact’s Thunder (Showalter), and it appears the Lightning aren’t the only U15 team that will be worth watching this winter and spring if you are a MSHS fan.

Northwest Juniors’ U15 UnderArmour Blue, based in Bellevue and which has a good-sized Mount Si delegation of five girls on it including Brooke Daly, Peyton MacKenzie and Robin Hakala, finished ninth on the weekend after opening with the 12th overall seed in the age group, so it looks like their seeding will bump up perhaps into the top 10 in time for the opening weekend of the regular season. The primary concern we see is that they struggled on the weekend, only winning one of their four matches, so that’ll have to improve obviously, but it’s early in the year and as Mount Si coach Bonnie Foote always preaches, it’s about improving every day, every play, so we’d expect to see the same approach with the NWJ girls.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, it was a good weekend for Carnation/Duvall-based Valley View. Their three teams that competed, a pair of U14’s and one U13 which is part of the U14 age group for the local competition, went a combined 7-3 on the weekend. The squads opened with fairly low seeds in the age group, so expect a bump up, but they are still well down in the seeding list in the region. A good start like this if the teams can build off it could be good news coming for the future stars of Cedarcrest High School’s program, many of whom likely will come from this Valley View club operation.

Also, speaking of Foote, her daughter Isabelle is competing this season, with KJ’s U14 crew, and the team went 2-1 this past weekend and finished 13th after opening play seeded 17th. Look for KJ to bump up the rankings a bit and be right there in the top eschelon of the age group all season. KJ teams historically have been among the best in the region, and many a top Mount Si player know this, and so does the longtime Wildcat coach, whose club coaching background was at KJ before she left to start up and run the locally-based RidgeValley program which ended operations this past fall as we have discussed here in the past.

As well, future MSHS stars also shined, with local middle-schoolers Maggie Kamp and Sophie Lobet competing for Northwest’s U14 Blue, which finished fifth on the weekend after opening with the fifth seed in the U14 division. They went 3-1 on the weekend, so look for them to have a strong season ahead.

All, however, was not rosy, as a number of other teams, mostly from NWJ which also feature a number of other MSHS athletes including Ashley Cornick, Ananya Banjeree and Sam Gilden, struggled and finished well back, with seedings to match. Those teams will look to pick things up in advance of the opening weekend of the regular season.

This weekend
The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend comes this weekend, and with it is the first big tournament weekend for local clubs. There is a local tournament – the Northwest Juniors’ sponsored tournament which will be contested all over the Puget Sound area with its headquarters facility in Renton and which several of the NWJ squads with local players, including the above mentioned U14 and U15 teams, will be competing at – but the big one is down in Eugene at the University of Oregon.

The Matt Hartner Memorial tournament is being hosted at the university’s campus this weekend and is named in honor of Matt Hartner, who was a longtime volleyball fixture around the university and youth scene in Oregon until his passing a few years ago. The event draws in many of the top teams from around the Northwest, so this serves as the first big test for local teams this year against the top regional competition, from both eastern Washington and Oregon, although this thing also draws teams in from California and Canada as well. The two Sudden Impact teams we mentioned above, along with KJ’s 16’s, will be there, and perhaps there will be others, we’ll keep you posted. That said, we’ll be sure to have full coverage for you throughout the weekend and have a full report on it all next week.

Also next week, we’ll preview the first weekend of “Power League” regular season play.

This has been your look at how the club volleyball scene is doing in USA Volleyball’s Puget Sound Region in the Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal. We’ll be back next week!

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Basketball games scrubbed thanks to the snow…for both Valley high schools

Posted on January 14, 2020 by Rhett Workman

Good afternoon everyone. We had nothing of note for you this morning as there was nothing of note going on, thanks to last night’s cancellation of the Cedarcrest High School boys’ basketball game at Everett.

That leads us to tonight, and as you might guess, all of tonight’s high school basketball action for both Mount Si and Cedarcrest – the Red Wolves’ makeup boys’ date against the Seagulls in Everett along with the regularly scheduled girls’ game at home in Duvall as well as Mount Si’s boys’ road game at Bothell against the Cougars – have all been snowed out. The makeups for the Cedarcrest games have been announced – those are tentatively scheduled for Saturday afternoon at 1:30, the boys again at Everett and the girls at home in Duvall.

Additionally, a change has been announced for tomorrow night’s scheduled Mount Si girls’ basketball game. The game, originally scheduled for 7:15 at Bothell, has been moved up to 5:40 with the junior varsity game scheduled for that time switched back to the original varsity game time. This of course is weather permitting considering there’s additional snow and high wind in the forecast for the Valley for tonight into tomorrow. So this will likely change again, and if it does, we’ll advise.

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