Also on this Wednesday, we want to make a quick mention of an item out of Utah last night from high school basketball, as your editor watched this game online. A former Washington high school basketball player led the way for his new team in the Beehive State as they posted a big win.
Lone Peak High School, located in Utah County not far from Provo, got a team-high 20 points from senior Ethan Copeland in an 89-55 blowout victory over area rival Bountiful High School in a non-league game. Copeland, one of four Washington high school boys basketball players that we know of who transferred to schools in Utah last summer and fall in the wake of Washington’s current high school sports shutdown due to COVID-19 restrictions, is a former player from Sunnyside High School in the Yakima Valley on the east side of the Cascades.
Lone Peak with the win moved to 7-2 on the season and Copeland is proving to be a big factor. He is second in scoring for the Knights, averaging around 16 points a game for the class 6A (big-school) program.
As noted, Copeland is not the only former Washington boys’ high school player playing in Utah this winter – ex-Eastside Catholic star Nolan Hickman is at Wasatch Academy in the Salt Lake City area, former Zillah star Mason Landdeck is playing this winter at Desert Hills High School outside of St. George in the southwestern corner of the state, and ex-Puyallup player Taki Uluilakepa revealed in an interview last month with the Tacoma News Tribune he and his family, too, left for Utah this past summer; he is at the Real Salt Lake Academy program also in the SLC area.
These four were among over a dozen high school athletes from both football and basketball who left Washington high schools this past summer amidst the pandemic and the resulting shutdowns. Others included the Huard sisters, former Eastlake star Haley and her sister Macey, both of whom will be playing hoops this winter in Colorado, and former Wenatchee HS football quarterback Camden Sirmon, who transferred to Sentinel High School in Missoula, MT, and helped lead that school’s football team to its first Montana state high school football title in nearly 50 years back in November.
As for the here and now, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s Executive Board is expected to meet today to decide a path forward for high school sports’ restart in Washington. Governor Jay Inslee, as part of the state’s new overall economic restart plan he announced yesterday in a news conference, included restrictions on high school and youth sports as part of the regionally-based efforts. It is not known how those restrictions will impact the WIAA’s plans, but decisions are expected from the board today based on these new announcements from the state.
About Rhett Workman
Rhett Workman is the editor of the Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal. Workman is a veteran sports journalist, having covered Snoqualmie Valley sports for nearly a decade with the Snoqualmie Valley Record newspaper before starting up the SVSJ. Workman’s coverage has earned the support and respect of Valley coaches, players, parents and fans, and the SVSJ continues the standard of coverage that Workman brought to the Valley Record.View all posts by Rhett Workman →