Despite losing several top players from last year’s boys water polo team that finished ninth in the state with a 14-11 record, first-year varsity coach Mead Trick is optimistic as he prepares for the team’s opening game next Tuesday against Lakes.Trick, who previously coached the Golds (JV) and Whites (C), is swapping positions with last year’s Blue (varsity) coach, Jeff Clark.We have a strong group of guys with varsity time returning, Trick says. They’re a pretty positive group of guys with good fundamentals who know each other pretty well and have the ability to gel as a team.
The Bainbridge girls’ soccer team’s annual almost automatic entry into the state tournament has gone away with the entry into the Metro League, and it’s probably a good thing.We’d always go to state, but we’d meet our match – and more – right away, said senior co-captain Fab Rezayat. Since the majority of those matches and more came from Metro – arguably the toughest girls soccer league in the state – Rezayat sees positives in playing them more frequently.
“The Mini-Mariners may meet their maxi-size counterparts Sept. 19.That’s if plans in development for the Bainbridge Island Little League All-Stars to be honored before the Seattle Mariners’ Sept. 19 game against the Anaheim Angels come to fruition. Tentative plans, according to island league board member Stephen Smith, call for the Bainbridge team to be honored along with Kirkland’s 11-and-12-year-old girls’ softball team, which also made it to their national tournament. The boys will take part in batting practice at Safeco Field, may receive individual introductions over the public-address system, and may have one member selected to throw out a first pitch. Team members and coaches will get a block of right-field seats, and family members may able to join the group for tickets at a discounted price, Smith said. About 60 seats in all will be available. “
“Bainbridge High School volleyball coach Julie Miller leads her team into the new season with one certainty and two uncertainties. The varsity is definitely better than last year, she said. They’re the strongest group of hitters I’ve ever had, and everyone can play multiple positions. The core group played club ball, which is a higher level than high school, and you can really tell the difference.At all levels, this is the best group I’ve ever had. The freshmen look really good.The uncertainties revolve around the team’s first year of play in the Metro League, as well as the as-yet-unsettled question of allocation of district teams to the state meet, which is Nov. 9-10 in Lacey.Miller, a former collegiate player at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee now in her fourth year as varsity coach, welcomes the league change.I think it’s fine, she said. We’re ready for a change, to play different people. But I don’t know anything about them.Based on previous reputations, she sees Blanchet, Eastside Catholic and Seattle Prep as perhaps the most formidable league foes in the upcoming season, though all three are in the opposite division of the Metro League. “
“WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – Believe it or not, Bainbridge Island’s All-Stars left the Little League World Series on a winning note.On Wednesday, a day after being eliminated from the 16-team tournament with a 5-0 loss to Rolando Paulino of The Bronx, Bainbridge players assembled for their last game in Williamsport – a hastily arranged scrimmage on a practice field against the Khovrino Little League team from Moscow, Russia.With the pressure off on a sunny, slightly breezy Northwest-style afternoon, the Bainbridge players cheerfully trash-talked among themselves. They wore each other’s gloves. They played each other’s positions. They played six outs per half inning.And they probably won, behind home runs by Coby Gibler, Peter Huisinga and Robby Stevenson, but it didn’t really matter – for once, nobody was keeping score. “
“The Bainbridge All-Stars were eliminated from the Little League World Series on Tuesday.They dropped a 5-0 decision in the afternoon to the Rolando Paulino team from the Bronx, N.Y., giving up four unearned runs on three errors while managing just four hits.Their final hope for advancing to Wednesday’s semi-final round evaporated when Apopka, Fla., crushed Davenport, Iowa, 10-3 that evening, slamming four home runs in the process.Bainbridge needed Davenport to win and score at least six runs. “
“WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – By today, Bainbridge Island’s Little League All-Stars will be flying high – or flying home.The team was in the thick of a complicated tiebreaker scenario heading into Tuesday afternoon’s game against Rolando Paulino of The Bronx, N.Y., its third and final pool-play contest at the Little League World Series in this central Pennsylvania city.Bainbridge, with a 1-1 record, sought to be one of two teams in its four-member pool to advance to single-elimination semifinal play beginning today. To do so, the team had to beat the undefeated Bronx squad, and get some help later that day from Davenport, Iowa, which faced Apopka, Fla. in a 4 p.m. PST contest. “
“Manager Mike Patterson wasn’t ready to go home.We should still be playing, he insisted Thursday, following his team’s elimination from the U.S. Amateur Baseball Association 14-year-old World Series in Pasco this week.After a five-game, three-day weekend seeding round in which the team won two games and lost three, Bainbridge overcame an early three-run deficit to defeat Puerto Rico 4-3 earlier in the day in the tournament’s opening game. “
“Kevin Gent just couldn’t keep his mind on the needs of his clients during business meetings, the week before last in Oregon and Montana.Several times an hour, Gent, who operates his own Seattle-based architecture firm, would excuse himself, duck into a quiet hallway and call up a fellow Bainbridge Island Little League parent on his cellular phone to get updates on the All-Star team’s Northwest Region tournament contests in San Bernardino, Calif.Mike Baggett, BILL’s vice president of baseball, was often the one providing radio-quality play-by-play from the sun-soaked stands and offering a little good-natured color commentary when Gent’s son, Dalton, came to bat.Now Don (manager French) is pulling Dalton aside, Baggett said with a broad smile. It looks like Dalton’s crying. It looks like Don’s giving him a big kiss because Dalton says he’s not getting enough of his daddy’s love. “
” Few passengers on Saturday evening’s 6:10 ferry from Seattle gave the pair of middle-aged cyclists much notice as they devoured several cheeseburgers and cups of chowder. Like most of their fellow passengers, Stephanie Ager Kirz and Howard Kirz were simply heading home. The only difference was that they’d just cycled nearly 4,000 miles across the United States in more than three months to get there.A fellow cyclist had expressed some curiosity as they boarded the boat a few minutes earlier, noticing their panniers and bike trailer. Where’d you come from? he asked.Cle Elum.And before that?Virginia. “
“By today, the Bainbridge Island Little League All-Stars will come closer to knowing whether nationwide television exposure is in their immediate future. Bainbridge, which leveled its first two opponents 27-0 in Western Region tournament play, faced another unbeaten, unscored-upon team Tuesday night in Academy of Colorado Springs, Colo. A victory, regardless of the disposition of Bainbridge’s final pool play game Thursday morning against Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, would almost guarantee Bainbridge’s advancement into the 16-team field’s final-four round. “
“SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — After Tuesday night, the idea of Bainbridge Island playing in the Little League World Series no longer sounds like some sort of goofy pie-in-the-sky fantasy.That’s because, with the Bainbridge All-Stars’ 6-5 extra-innings stunner win over Academy of Colorado Springs, Colo., the team, at 3-0, has almost certainly earned enough points in pool-play competition to advance to the four-team semifinal round of the 14-team Western Region Little League Tournament. “
“Her only ride was old mountain bike with a baby seat on it, and Sally Samson had never gone more than 20 miles.Then last Thanksgiving, she got a call from her brother Mike Kuhn in Chicago. He wanted Samson to accompany him on a six-day, 530-mile bike ride from the Twin Cities to Chicago in mid-July, to raise money for several Midwest AIDS service organizations.At first I said ‘no way,’ Samson said. Then I thought, it’s so far ahead that I can train for it.Though she was accustomed to physical exercise – power walking, kickboxing, whitewater kayaking – cycling represented something of a departure. So she spent the next few months riding a stationary bike, often attaining speeds of up to 20 miles an hour. “
