Sports

The swirling winds at Avista Stadium on Sunday had as much to do with the outcome as any hitter, pitcher or fielder. Not that any player or coach would use that as an excuse, but it didn’t make it any less true.

PULLMAN – Andrej Jakimovski has played his final game in the crimson laundry.

SEATTLE – On May 15, 2023, thousands of fans filed into Climate Pledge Arena to watch a hockey game. They came in jerseys and octopus hats and blue hair dye and mermaid fins, looking the playoff part. They came despite the unrelenting 86-degree heat, a Seattle spring outlier. They came with signs and dolls donning custom-made Kraken jerseys, with hockey sticks and hope.

The setting may be a living room instead of a board room, but Ty Wilson is still cutting deals.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • No matter if you are 18 or 81, you’ve met people throughout your life. Sometimes meeting them means not ever actually, you know, being face to face. Case in point: athletic heroes. We all have them. And as you speed down the highway to your ultimate destination, those heroes exit the race more and more often. Another one of ours did Saturday.

BILLINGS – Almost 37 years ago, Frank and Deborah Popper’s collaborative academic article was published in a small magazine for planning professionals.

DENVER – Maybe the Mariners should hope for frigid temperatures and intermittent snowfall for Sunday’s doubleheader.

PULLMAN – Washington State linebacker Kyle Thornton is used to it at this point. It’ll get to be late in the evening, around 8 or 9 , and he’ll look down to see his phone ringing.

Lefty Sean Sullivan may not be as heralded as his rotation mate Chase Dollander, but the Colorado Rockies’ second-round pick in the 2023 draft (46th overall) has been just as effective to start the season.

From staff reports

Roundup of Saturday's high school sports action from the Greater Spokane League and Northeast A League. 

MOSCOW, Idaho – Only one position group for the exceptionally young Idaho Vandals enjoys the security of senior starters, coach Jason Eck points out.

Great books transport readers to unexamined places, such as inside a person’s mind once a body has abandoned it. Or maybe they cause readers to abandon long-held notions of human limitations. So it is with Steve Gleason’s “A Life Impossible.” 

The Circling Raven Championship is no longer on the Epson Tour schedule after a three-year run at Circling Raven Golf Club.

After working to replace six players who graduated, left school for the NBA or transferred away from Gonzaga last offseason, Mark Few and his coaching staff shouldn’t have to spend as much time rebuilding or retooling the Bulldogs’ roster this summer.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • We won’t be writing about the Mariners’ Friday game this morning. It was postponed. Weather. We won’t be writing about the transfer portal either. We are overwhelmed. We also won’t be writing about the Seahawks’ draft plans, our latest golf outing or how sports can keep you young. That doesn’t leave much, does it?

From staff reports