Local teams aim to advance
The next to last weekend of the 2007-08 high school sports season is a busy one as area athletes in seven sports and all classifications compete in state tournaments or for the chance to advance to state.
State 4A baseball at Gonzaga Prep will pit the state’s top three ranked teams and talented pitchers against one another in three games to determine a state semifinalist.
Scott Sutherland, coach of Greater Spokane League and District 8 champion University, said that the Titans’ foe, Redmond, is senior oriented and that speedy left fielder and leadoff hitter Tim Wilson is the Mustangs’ catalyst.
Sutherland also praised Richland, which plays Central Valley in the 10 a.m. opener, saying the Bombers, “absolutely can swing it. I would venture a guess they’re the best-hitting team in state, one through nine.”
Other tournaments in the Spokane include:
•Mead boys soccer will host the State 4A quarterfinal match at noon Saturday against visiting Eastlake. The league co-champion Panthers beat district and regional champion CV to become the last eastern Washington team standing.
•Regional softball is a repeat of last year, including two identical first-round matchups. Shadle Park faces Moses Lake and U-Hi plays Walla Walla in openers for the second straight year. CV plays Pasco and Mead plays Richland, four other teams back from last season’s tournament.
•The GSL-Columbia Basin League 4A and 3A tennis regionals today and Saturday send three players each in boys and girls singles and doubles to state.
Mead has five 4A entrants, including the district champion girls doubles team of Britta and Katijene Stime. Ferris has four, led by boys and girls singles champs Whitman Hough and Katie Griffith. LC’s Chris Martin and Zach Williams are the boys doubles top seed.
Mt. Spokane has six of the GSL’s eight regional 3A competitors, including district champs Zach Caldwell in boys singles, Jarred Dahl and Freddy Identeg in doubles, and Savhanna Robertson and Katie Bates in girls doubles.
Track and field athletes are the only ones on the road from the GSL, in Richland today and Saturday competing for 4A and 3A state spots.
Elsewhere in state tournament play Saturday, West Valley and Clarkston are in Yakima beginning at 10 a.m. in a baseball quad that includes last year’s 2A runner-up, Selah; Pullman is in Chehalis at 1 p.m. in 2A; Freeman is in Moses Lake at 1 p.m., and Lakeside in Wenatchee at 10 a.m. for 1A; St. George’s and Northwest Christian are at Shadle Park, and Lind-Ritzville is in Walla Walla in 2B; and Colton and Odessa are at Naches Valley and Northport and Curlew in Yakima in 1B.
Cheney’s soccer team is in Grandview at 5 tonight in the State 2A second round.
Track, softball and tennis qualifiers from 2A through B abound.