“How far is it from the downtown Colman terminal to the Vashon ferry dock in Fauntleroy?It’s 13 miles, says Cookie Gaulding of Bainbridge, matter-of-factly. She knows – she walked the route as part of her training for the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, which begins in Enumclaw on Aug. 10 and concludes in Seattle, Aug. 12. “
“The Bainbridge Babe Ruth 14-year-old All-Stars hoped that the old baseball adage Let’s play two held true yesterday.After wins in their first two games, they lost to North Kitsap 4-2 on Monday morning to drop into the loser’s bracket in state tournament play. “
What girls softball 9/10 All-Stars coach Tony Gaspich called the weirdest play I’ve ever seen was a major factor in the team’s 3-2 loss on Sunday to Redmond West in the state tournament in Vancouver.Following wins in the team’s two opening games – including Haylee Baker’s no-hitter on Saturday – the defeat set up a loser-out game yesterday.
“WALLA WALLA – Tonight, Bainbridge Island’s boys of summer may be sound asleep in their beds with visions of Southern California dancing in their heads.Bainbridge’s 11/12-year-olds, competing as one of 11 district-tournament-winning teams in the state Little League Majors baseball tourney, won their first two games of the week-long event despite being forced to play in – for them – uncharacteristically searing heat. “
“The two key hits in Thursday’s 5-2 district championship win over Gig Harbor, advancing the Bainbridge 11/12 All-Stars to next week’s state championships, couldn’t have been more different.The first was Peter Huisinga’s 210-foot, two-run homer that climaxed a three-run first inning. The other was Rudy Sharar’s 15-foot bunt single that trickled down the third base line to ignite a two-run sixth inning and provide some breathing room in a close game. The victory was the third in three days as the team rebounded from a Sunday defeat by the Gig Harbor Americans to take home the championship trophy. “
“The Babe Ruth 15-year-old All-Stars have a Herculean task ahead of them after dropping a 5-0 decision to host North Kitsap Wednesday, in the first game of their state tournament at Poulsbo’s Snider Field. The loss dropped Bainbridge into the loser’s bracket, where they would have to win yesterday, today, twice tomorrow and two more times on Monday to capture the tournament title and advance to the regional tournament in Idaho. “
“The Babe Ruth 13-year-old All-Stars opened district tournament play in fine fashion on Friday. C.J. Hall threw a complete-game one-hitter and the team knocked off South Kitsap 4-2 at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds in Silverdale.But it was a vastly different story on Saturday when the team endured a 19-4 thumping by Central Kitsap.First the wheels came off, said coach Jon Kroman, and then the rest of the car parts. “
“The Bainbridge 9-10 girls All-Stars became the first-ever island softball team to advance to the state tournament as they completed a three-game sweep of the District 2 tournament on Wednesday by trouncing host Sequim 12-1.The team opens state tournament play in Vancouver on Friday at 6:00 p.m. Pitcher Lindsay Willmann went the distance against Sequim, throwing a one-hitter and striking out 12 as the game was called after five innings due to the ten-run rule. Willman had an outstanding tournament, allowing just two hits in nine innings and fanning 24. “
“The Coast Guard recently released some alarming statistics: * Staffing is so low that many personnel work well in excess of 40 hours a week;* On-the-water accidents involving Coast Guard personnel have more than tripled in the past two years;* Virtually no new recruits assigned to Coast Guard stations have training in small boat search and rescue;* Eighty-four percent of search-and-rescue small boats were deemed not ready for sea.No one who boards the 37-foot Cooper pilothouse sloop Havorn, though, would think of it as not ready for sea.Shipshape and Bristol fashion, Havorn belongs to Poulsbo resident Peter Riley, a member of the local Coast Guard Auxiliary’s Flotilla 48. “
“Yogi Berra to the contrary, it wasn’t deja vu all over again at Sunday’s Fred Schaffer Helpline House Memorial Golf Tournament, the 10th annual charity event that pits the pros at Wing Point and Meadowmeer in a 36-hole, best-ball format.Last year, Meadowmeer head pro Tom Mueller’s second shot at Wing Point’s 10th hole hit a tree on the right side of the fairway. The ball took a fortuitous bounce and landed on the green, giving Mueller a putt for a possible eagle.This year: same shot, same tree. But the result was a vastly different species of bird, more akin to a duck as it splashed into the water. With Meadowmeer assistant pro Drew Azure having arboreal problems of his own – his tee shot rolled under a heavily branched fir tree and he had to chip out onto the fairway – both men wound up with bogeys. “
“The Fourth of July pancake breakfast – and perhaps the entire Grand Old Fourth celebration of which the breakfast is an integral part – owes its genesis to a few baseball uniforms.When longtime island middle school teacher Dean Scherer moved here in 1961 and became baseball coach, he quickly became aware of an inequity.In those days we had only the varsity team, Scherer recalls, but so many kids turned out that it didn’t seem right to me to leave the younger kids out.So he approached then-athletic director Mike Nunamaker in 1963 and asked for funding to start a JV team. “
“Mike Reese is leaving his head baseball coaching position at Bainbridge High School to accept a similar post at Olympic College, OC athletic director Barry Janusch announced this week.Reese, who accepted the job from Janusch on Tuesday, was working on a winning tradition in his short tenure at Bainbridge – the Spartans were 49-17 under his tutelage.His team won the Olympic League title in 1999 and he was named the league’s coach of the year. The Spartans were West Central District champions that year, and again in 2000. It was a difficult decision, Reese said. I’ve had nothing but a great time on the island, and have appreciated the community support. “
“Monday’s Babe Ruth championship game pitted an opportunistic Pace team that appeared to have peaked at the right time against CFA Mortgage, which had lost three of its final four regular season games to slip from first to third.Pace, just 6-9 during the season, came into the game on a roll. They knocked off Texaco 8-1 on Saturday as Adam Knappe threw a no-hitter, then trounced top-seeded Virginia Mason on Sunday 11-1 behind Ranger Sciacca’s 118-pitch complete game that included nine strikeouts.CFA, on the other hand, struggled to defeat Chevron, a team with one win all season, by a 10-7 score on Saturday after falling behind 4-0. And it took a desperate over-the-shoulder catch by Brett Mendenhall with the winning run in scoring position in the final inning to defeat regular season runner-up Re/Max 4-3 on Sunday.But after spotting Pace an early 2-0 lead, CFA parlayed a four-run third inning into a 7-3 victory and the tournament championship in a game that perhaps should have been played on Winslow Way in front of Virginia Mason because of the injuries and illnesses involved. “
