Count wrestling coach Steve Hohl among the fans of the Spartans’ shift to the Metro League this year.
“We should do very well this year,” he said. “Even in our bad years we beat Nathan Hale, and even with three starters missing we beat O’Dea last year.”
Those two schools plus Ballard and Blanchet are the traditional Metro powers.
This year’s Spartan boys’ swim team doesn’t have a lot of senior leadership. In fact, the team doesn’t have a lot of seniors.
As of last Friday, there was a total of one: Nick Rodda.
“He’s a great leader and has phenomenal experience in swimming,” said coach Lynn Wells, returning for her second year after guiding the Spartans to an 11th place finish at the state meet. “But he wants some company.”
BI Swim Club coach Jane Swanson and a group of her athletes watched a 9-year-old girl, competing in her first-ever race out in the nether reaches of lane six, win a 50-yard race in just over 30 seconds. That’s an outstanding time even for an experienced swimmer at that age.
“Who is that girl?” Swanson asked.
Nine years later, the swim coaches at several dozen major universities know exactly who “that girl” is.
About four minutes into Saturday’s first-round playoff football game at Yakima’s West Valley, Gary Duffner swept around left end for a one-yard gain to the Ram 42.
That turned out to be the closest that Bainbridge came to scoring.
Last Friday’s Girls 2A/3A Swimming and Diving Championships ended with Bainbridge finishing second to Bellevue, 227 to 232.
When Susan Donnan ran the final few strides of last year’s Seattle Half Marathon, she noticed that hundreds of kids were crossing the artificial turf of Seattle’s Memorial Stadium beside her.
They were part of the Kids Marathon that accompanies the annual adult event, and Donnan became an instant fan.
She’s not the only one. Started in 1998 with 250 signed up, the Kids Marathon had more than 1,400 entrants in 2000, and organizers anticipate nearly 3,000 this year.
UPDATE: The Bainbridge football team will play West Valley (Yakima) at 3:00 p.m. on
Saturday. The game will be at West Valley High School, 9206 Zier Road,
Yakima. The Rams, 8-2 for the season, qualified by defeating Cheney 18-10 on
Tuesday.
The Spartan football team qualified for the state playoffs for the first time in six years with Thursday’s 21-6 win against West Seattle at Seattle’s Memorial Stadium.
The team’s next goal is to do what no Bainbridge football team has ever done in the 29 years that the playoff system has been in existence: win a state playoff game.
When senior Elizabeth Wiggs accepted her Athletic Scholar award – given to those with GPAs of 3.75 or higher – following the diving competition at Saturday’s District 2 swim meet, she thought it would be her only ribbon.
She was wrong.
Pressed into service later in the meet because of injuries to two swimmers, she swam lifetime bests in the 200 and 400 freestyle relays to play a key role as the Spartans squeaked by Bellevue.
The Spartan football team came ever so close to washing away O’Dea’s 70-game regular season winning streak in a game played in a constant heavy pelting rain, but came up just short in Friday’s 12-7 defeat.
Disappointed with the loss and convinced that they’d played the city’s premier program on virtually even terms, most members of the team would have loved another shot at the Irish.
They might get it.
The girls soccer team closed out the regular season with a 2-0 win on Thursday afternoon at Eastside Catholic to provide some momentum going into today’s first round of Metro League playoffs.
The Spartan football team delivered their most entertaining game of the season to a packed house on Friday by defeating Seattle Prep 34-26 in a game that saw four touchdowns in the final ten minutes.
Even the one bad call of the night, a third quarter pass “completion” at the Spartan one where the Prep receiver was clearly out of bounds – the NFL requires two feet inbounds, the NCAA one, ergo high school requires none? – which led to the Panthers’ second touchdown, was quickly forgotten in post-game euphoria as hundreds of students and other fans poured onto the field.
The Spartan freshman football team nearly came back in the final moments of Thursday’s game against Seattle Prep to pull out a victory, but a final Hail Mary pass was picked off as the visiting Panthers preserved their 26-22 win.
Down 20-6 at halftime, Bainbridge gave up another score in the third quarter and trailed 26-6. But Francis Toglia scored on a two-yard run and Zach Smith added his second touchdown of the game late in the fourth quarter. On both occasions the Spartans were successful in two-point conversions, bringing the team to within four points.
The girls cross country team finished third in their first-ever Metro League Cross Country Championships on Thursday at Seattle’s Lower Woodland Park course, while the boys placed sixth.
The Spartan girls scored 67 points, with Blanchet edging Holy Names 49-51 to take the title. Blanchet swept the team titles by placing all seven runners in the top 16 to easily win the boys’ competition with 30 points.
