Player’s Welfare A Community Project

In his four years at Darrington High School, Marty Lenker has been passed from family to family like a relay baton.

Not that the Loggers’ 5-foot-9 senior guard is complaining. He realizes that without the generosity, sympathy and concern of those in his close-knit community, he might be struggling for survival on the streets instead of living his dream of competing in the State B boys basketball tournament.

“The community, my friends, my teammates, they’ve all really helped me out,” said Lenker, whose divorced mother Rosemary died when he was a freshman, leaving him to fend for himself at the age of 14. “They kept me out of trouble.”

Lenker’s father left the family and moved to Pennsylvania when Marty was 2 years old. He has not contacted his youngest son since.

Following his mother’s death, Lenker has lived with four families, including that of his oldest brother, Doug, 32, who led the Loggers to the 1981 state baseball title.

Lenker, who currently lives with Mr. and Mrs. Mel Peterson, averaged nearly seven points during the regular season and scored 10 in Darrington’s opening-round win over Toutle Lake on Wednesday morning.

“Basketball has been a real large part of my life,” he explained. “It gives me something to strive for - especially trying to make it to state. It’s been my focus ever since my mom died.”

Reunited

Even though Trout Lake forward Ryan Belieu’s first trip to the State B boys’ basketball tournament ended Thursday after only two games, he seemed satisfied with the experience - mainly because he got to share it with his closest friends and Mustangs teammates.

That almost wasn’t an option for the 6-foot-3 junior, who grew up in Trout Lake but spent his freshman year at Colton High School after his father became the principal there. The move didn’t sit well with Belieu, but his anxiety was relieved less than year later when his family moved back to Trout Lake and re-occupied their former home.

Belieu and his old teammates renewed acquaintances and went about making good on the goal they had set in junior high school - giving the Mustangs their first state tournament berth.

And while Colton was struggling through a 6-17 season this winter, Belieu averaged nearly 16 points a game as Trout Lake went 21-3 during the regular season.

“I left guys (in Trout Lake) that I had been playing with since sixth grade, and that was real tough on me,” Belieu recalled following Thursday’s loser-out loss to Rainier. “Three or four of us had played together since third grade, so it was fun getting back together with them and getting here for the first time ever.

“So even though it’s disappointing to lose, it’s sure hasn’t been a disappointing trip.”

L-W Club

It seemed like a no-brainer.

The group of women standing behind the LaCrosse-Washtucna bench and screaming through nearly every minute of a losers-bracket victory over Orcas Island were wearing white baseball caps emblazoned with the letters “L-W” - for LaCrosse-Washtucna, right?

Uh-uh.

The letters stand for “Loud Women,” according to Arlene Gordon, a long-standing member of the noisy group of Tigercats supporters cheering on their team in its first State B tournament since the two schools combined.

“Most people in the area know L-W stands for LaCrosse-Washtucna,” Gordon explained. “But for a certain group of Tigercat boosters, L-W has a double meaning.”

The group has lived up to its billing by saluting every outstanding play with its trademark yell of “Woo-woo-woo!” and amplifying every routine of the cheerleaders.

, DataTimes