Germany Trip Eye-Opening Experience For Team
Riverside basketball players became the first American high school team to visit and play in the former East German town of Muhlhausen.
“We received the warmest reception. People lined the streets,” basketball coach Brent Monroe said of his group’s ground-breaking visit. “They did not want us to leave.”
It was just the latest experience provided by Monroe for students and chaperones. Monroe has arranged a series of exchange trips for students to the city of Meppen, a community of 30,000 people in northeast Germany near the border of Holland.
The town has become an unofficial sister city, with residents housing the visitors and coming here in alternate years.
Monroe began the exchange trips to Meppen while a teacher and coach in Chelan.
This was the second such visit for Riverside, a 23-day stay that began June 20 and ended July 12. Ten boys and 13 girls basketball players, along with 13 adults, flew to Amsterdam and traveled to Meppen for their base of operations.
From there the students traveled the country, visited various sites, including a former concentration camp at Buchenwald, played basketball and ended with a visit to Paris.
Among the German stops was East Berlin.
“When we drove in, my best analysis was that we were driving into a black-and-white movie,” said Monroe.
The former communist-bloc city, unlike the west side, is devoid of color.
“It was quite an eye-opener,” said Monroe.
“Even though the wall is down, things stayed backward. A lot of the mentality is wanting to get everything they can from the West as quickly as possible.
“And the West is saying, ‘Whoa. We’ve got to pay for that.’ There’s still a rift.”
The girls broke even in eight basketball games. The boys won all nine of theirs, including contests against teams from Holland, Germany and Croatia.
“They saw too much NBA,” Monroe said of the Croation team. “Trash talking in basketball is pretty universal.”
Basketball, however, is secondary to cultural and worldwide experiences Monroe wants his charges to have.
“When they see how people live, what struck them most was how lucky we are with what we have when they come home,” said Monroe. “We are very fortunate.
“Hopefully the kids take that understanding with them.”
The thought that TWA Flight 800 bound for Paris from New York exploded just days after the Riverside travelers arrived home, said Monroe was frightening.
“It always enters your mind,” he said. “I tell people ahead of time they don’t know what might happen in a crazy world.”
But the safety threat will not curtail these excursions every two or three years.
“You can’t sit home on the porch,” said Monroe. “You have to experience things.
“You can’t control everything in life. These are something we need to continue.”
Stars withstand Blue Devils pitch
It wasn’t artistic, but the North Stars’ 11-10 9-inning American Legion AAA baseball win Monday stymied a championship bid by the Blue Devils.
The North Side team, composed of players from North Central, Shadle Park and Lakeside, had threatened to share the lead with the Stars after shutting them out twice last week.
George Petticrew blanked the team on one hit, and Jeremy Affeldt pitched a four-hitter, striking out 15 during the 3-0 and 5-0 wins. Earlier, Affeldt threw a two-hitter but lost to Pullman. North Stars are now 16-7, and the Blue Devils fell to 13-9 in league.
Pitching has been the Blue Devil long suit all season long. The team had the league’s top three pitchers in Aaron Hancock, Affeldt and Eric Hayden, and Petticrew was among the top 10 in most recent statistics.
But it betrayed them in Monday’s ragged game that featured 35 hits and six North Stars errors. Affeldt hit Grant Reeves with the bases loaded to produce the winning run.
Top four finishers will meet in a series of best-of-three playoffs to determine a state qualifier for the AAA tournament in Marysville. Both teams have qualified.
In the AA League’s North Division, Eagle Hardware and Maxwell House, teams from Shadle Park and North Central, finished first and second and are involved in this week’s playoffs to determine a state entrant.
The American Legion AA State Tournament will be at Shadle Park’s Al K. Jackson Field.
Morris Clark to Pony State
The Morris Clark Bombers, champions of the North Division of Spokane Pony Baseball’s 14-team league, are headed to state following victory in the District 4 tournament.
The team won three of four games in a dramatic double-elimination playoff with the South Hill Cardinals and Whitman County.
The champions had to come from behind in the top of the seventh to beat Whitman County 12-10 after blowing a 9-3 lead in the seventh inning of the first finals game to lose 10-9.
Morris-Clark, 21-3, begins state tournament play in Bellevue today, and a top-six finish would qualify them to regionals the following week in Tacoma.
During last weekend’s playoffs, pitchers Jeremy Smith and Robert Schuyler blanked the Cardinals 2-0 in a game that went nine innings.
The pitchers allowed four hits and struck out 15. In the second extra inning Joe Kernkamp singled home Adam Johnson, and Jake Swanson followed with a triple.
After scoring five runs in the first inning, Morris-Clark had to rally for a 12-7 win over Whitman. Josh Robinson and Pat Thomas singled in runs to tie the game.
They took the lead in the sixth, and Ryan Van Doren hit a two-run double for insurance in the seventh.
In the two games against Whitman that decided a champion, Jim Hryniewicz drove in 11 runs, six of the Bombers’ nine in the loss, and five more during the 12-10 win.
Down by two runs in the last inning, singles by Dan Staton and Josh Taylor were followed by a two-run error. Swanson squeezed across the go-ahead run, and an error produced the final score.
Morris-Clark’s team is made up of 13- and 14-year-olds from Mead, Deer Park and Nine Mile Falls schools. Others on the team are Shawn Henry, Clint Talley, Jameston Stewart and Eric Naccarato.
Coaches are Tim Van Doren and Rod Staton.
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