Wv Softball Coach Steve Kent Resigns
Steve Kent liked to joke with his West Valley softball players that he’s the best coach they ever had, simply because he’s the only softball coach WV has had.
That will change next year.
Kent, who started the program when it was slow pitch 21 years ago, has announced his resignation.
“There are a litany of reasons,” said Kent. “The biggest would be to watch my son play sports.”
Craig Kent will be a sophomore football player and track athlete at Central Valley High next year.
Steve Kent, who also was head football coach for 13 years through 1997, is leaving West Valley High to teach in the alternative Contract Based Education program.
The 44-year-old Kent has spent the better part of his life inside West Valley’s halls. He was a student there, student taught at WV and has taught and coached the Eagles the past 21 years.
“I felt, after coming into this building for parts of 25 years, it was time to move along,” said Kent.
Softball was his ticket to a teaching contract during the 1979-80 school year, although he admits that he didn’t know anything about the sport.
“The only reason I took it was because it was tied to a history job I wanted,” Kent recalled. “I was a football coach.”
A lot of his early coaching, said Kent, was trial by fire. But he was a quick study.
It began in 1980 with five years in the Greater Spokane League, where WV finished as high as third. When the Frontier League added softball the Eagles soared, even during the evolution from slow to fast pitch.
Between 1985 and 1998, WV qualified for 12 of 14 state tournaments and placed among the top six six times, twice finishing second and once third. He fully credits the athletes.
“The kids were playing a lot of ball, were multi-sport athletes and in the weight programs,” he said.
They are who Kent will miss most upon giving up coaching the sport. What he won’t miss are the Border League alignment, or long bus rides.
“It’s been an incredible ride,” said Kent. “I couldn’t imagine how many state trips we’d make at the time. In 1998, we had gone five years in a row. I told my assistants we can’t take it for granted. When you don’t make it you appreciate that even more.”
Northwest arm-wrestling winners
Nearly 100 entrants put their best arms forward during the sixth annual Northwest High School and Open Arm Wrestling Championships last Thursday at East Valley High.
Jesse Bales was grand champion, overall open male winner and first place in the 151-175 pound bracket.
Nick Johnson won the 201-pound and over and left-handed overall male categories. Zach Lange was high school overall male winner and 176-200 high school classification champion. Colleen Ripatti was open female and overall female winner.
Other open male champions were Josh Birt in the 176-200 category and Dan Harris in the 136-150 category.
Katie Knodel won the high school female champion.
Other high school male champions were Tony Beggs in the left-hand and 151-175 category, Dan Durham at 201-plus, Paul Hunt at 136-150 and John Sommer at 135-under.
All told there were 84 male and 13 female entrants.
Legion co-champs begin with wins
Spokane Athletic Supply and Spokane Olympic Sports, co-champions last year of the South Junior American Legion baseball division, began a new year victoriously.
SAS outscored Medical Lake 18-11, getting four hits from Drew Puntney, three by Kenny Smith and a pair of doubles by Caleb Whitney.
Whitney was one of five players with two hits in the game, which was decided by a 9-run fifth inning.
SAS lost 7-6 in nine innings to Cheney in its second outing, Smith with two more hits.
Olympic Sports won 12-10 over Cheney with a 3-run seventh inning.
The team began its rally after trailing 5-1 through three innings.
Brett Neste, Mike Koentopp and Travis Thompson all had two hits.
In another opener, Strike Zone from West Valley beat East Valley 8-5 behind the pitching and hitting of Jesse Stroh and Ryan Walley.