Welsh goes undefeated in the all-around for first time in several years; Bainbridge hangs onto the ball, win three straight away games in four days.
Katherine Samstag was understandably nervous as she sat with her teammates waiting for the final scores of the meet between Bainbridge and North Kitsap.
The senior co-captain wasn’t sure if they had scored well enough in the four events to earn a win.
But despite a bad showing on the bars, the Spartans performed well on the vault and floor to get the win – albeit a close one – in their regular season finale over the Vikings 157.75-155.35 Friday night at BHS.
“We were missing two of our top gymnasts, so it was kind of tough,” Samstag said, referring to Annie Zuckerman and Kathleen Callahan, who were away at a club meet. “(Plus) we didn’t do well on bars.”
But she and co-captain Stella Wilson were excited to keep their streak going even with the usual and unusual circumstances they had to deal with over the season.
“We had one of our big meets canceled (because of the weather), we’ve had injuries and girls have been sick, so it’s been hard,” Samstag said.
“Plus North Kitsap is a 4A school, so that makes it (the close score) a little easier to stomach,” Wilson said. “But it feels good (to keep it up.) We didn’t want to be the ones to break it.”
The win is their 88th dual meet win in a row. Head coach Cindy Guy estimates they haven’t lost a regular season match since 1999.
Marie Welsh completed a undefeated season in the all-around competition with her score of 34.3, .95 higher than her teammate Sophie Wenzlau, who finished second with a score of 33.35.
According to Guy, only two other gymnasts have pulled off that feat in the history of the program at the school – one of them being former two-time state champ Brooke Nall.
She placed first on the vault by nailing a beautiful Yurchenko for a 9.3, but missed some spots on her performance on the bars, scoring a 6.7.
Guy said that the judge told her she was missing some parts of her routine, while the other kids were doing extra swings en route to their dismount, which led to the team’s cumulative score of 32.7.
“We didn’t work routines this week because we used this week as a week to learn new skills,” she said. “That’s a risk you take but we’re trying to improve in the long run.
“We’re looking forward to Metros, so we want to have harder and better skills.”
Welsh recovered to score a 8.8 on the beam and a 9.5 on the floor.
The junior wasn’t too talkative about the streak, but Guy said she’s not one to brag about what she’s done.
“It’s a lot of pressure, so she doesn’t like to talk about it,” she said. “But it’s very important to her. As a coach, it’s stressful for us because when we saw that 6.7, we’re like (worried.)”
Despite a fall, Wenzlau was first on the bars with a 7.8, second on the beam with a 8.35 and second on the floor with a 9.1.
With the two missing gymnasts, the Spartans kept their scores high thanks to their depth.
Samstag scored a 8.15 on the vault, while Eva Fazzini scored a 8.4 to finish fourth.
Wilson scored a 7.2 on the beam while Lauren Fleming had scores of 7.8 on the vault, 8.05 on the beam and 8.1 on the floor.
Freshman Katie Mathews stepped up and scored a 8.3 on the vault and finished fourth on the floor with a 8.9.
Talia Weiss, another freshman, contributed scores of 8.2 on the vault, 7.0 on the beam and 7.65 on the floor.
“We learned our lesson last year,” Guy said. “You gotta go out for it. You can’t assume you’re going to go out and win. You have to work hard to get there and fight for it.”
Now with the regular season out of the way, the team turns their focus to the Metro championship meet this Friday at West Seattle High School.
Welsh feels they won’t put too much pressure on themselves.
“We’re just going to work hard in gym this week and not really think about it,” she said. “We’re just going to go out and do our best.”
Guy said they’ll have some motivation after their poor showing at last year’s Metro championships, where they lost to West Seattle for the first time in four years.
“We’re really excited about it,” she said. “I feel like we’re going to have a good meet. They didn’t like losing (last year) as much as we liked losing as coaches.”
The meet starts at 5 p.m.
Spartans stay undefeated in league play
The Bainbridge boys basketball team have shown they can handle a long road trip as well as any team out there.
The second-ranked Spartans defeated the Cleveland Eagles 78-67 at Boren Junior High in overtime on Monday.
The Eagles play in the gym while their building is in the midst of a two-year remodel.
They also beat Bishop Blanchet 69-50 on Saturday at Bishop Blanchet High School in a makeup game and Lakeside 66-35 Friday at Lakeside High School.
Against the Eagles, the Spartans raced out to a 16-6 lead, but Cleveland closed the gap to 18-16 at the end of the first quarter.
Bainbridge maintained a four to five point lead through the rest of the game, but Cleveland got to within three, then tied it up with six seconds left as Hilton Horne drove into the lane, scored and was fouled. He hit his free throw to complete the three point play.
But the Spartans took care of things in overtime, scoring 14 points in the extra period to close it out.
Nick Fling hit a three to spark the scoring run.
Austin Wood and Coby Gibler each finished with 18 points.
Steven Gray had 16, making it the first time this season that someone other than Gray has been the leading scorer for a game.
Gibler had 15 rebounds while Gray had ten assists and eight rebounds.
The Spartans had just two turnovers in the fourth quarter and overtime combined. They had 14 in the first half.
Horne scored 24 points while Michael Crudup had 20 points.
Against Lakeside, the Spartans had just eight turnovers in the game. They gave the ball up just once in the second half while holding the Lions to single digits in the first and third quarters.
Gray scored 22 points while Gibler had ten points and ten rebounds.
Ben Eisenhardt came off the bench to score six points and grab 11 rebounds.
Against Blanchet, Bainbridge were up just 34-27 at the half, but were able to pull away at the end.
Gray scored 19 points while Wood and Gibler had 11 points each.
The Spartans also dominated on the boards as Gray had seven, Gibler had six and Wood and Fling had five apiece.
Head coach Scott Orness also said Fling had a big dunk for his first score to get things going.
“We spread the wealth,” he said of Friday’s game. “Everybody got a little something.”
Bainbridge turned the ball over just six times for the game.
They played Blanchet yesterday, then travel to Seattle Prep on Friday and to O’Dea on Saturday at 3 p.m. for a huge matchup of the top two teams in the league.
Girl hoopsters still in playoff hunt
Bainbridge girls basketball head coach Penny Gienger hasn’t had much to enjoy about this season.
They’ve dealt with numerous cancellations of games which turned their road trip into an extra long one (they’ve had just one home game in their past seven contests) which put an extra strain on Finals Week (it also didn’t help that a bomb threat pushed things back another day.)
Add to it the recent bout of illness that is going around both basketball teams and it’s not good times for the girls.
But after hitting the low point of their loss to Rainier Beach, the Spartans came back and took Lakeside to the limit before losing 64-62 in overtime Friday at Lakeside High school.
They came back to defeat Bishop Blanchet 58-38 on Saturday at Bishop Blanchet in a makeup game.
The win pulls them back to within a game of .500 and solidifies their fourth place spot in the Mountain Division.
“I’m really proud of my players,” Gienger said.
Against Lakeside, Bainbridge kept things close and even had the lead with seconds to go.
But they couldn’t convert at the line, and Lakeside scored on a layup and knocked down a three pointer with two seconds left to send it to overtime.
The Spartans didn’t quit and it was tied with seconds to go in the extra period.
But as Lakeside forward Alex Moore-Porter and a Spartan player were scrambling for a loose ball, the refs called a foul on the Spartans, sending Moore-Porter to the line for the game-winning free throws.
Gienger disagreed with the call.
“Two people went for a loose ball and it was nobody’s possession” she said. “I don’t think you do that on a loose ball with a second to go. You just need to let it go and move on to double overtime. Any good official would let it go.
“I’d fight that anytime. It’s not a fair call.”
Brittany Gray scored 22 points and grabbed 12 rebounds while Emily Farrar and Caitlyn Salo scored 15 points each.
Both shot 50 percent or better from the three-point line.
Against Blanchet, the Spartans raced out to a 15-7 lead after the first quarter and didn’t look back.
“It wasn’t as intense as Friday night, but we were methodical,” Gienger said. “We just picked their zone apart and we played well enough to win.”
Farrar led the team with 20 points, just the second time that someone other than Gray has led the team in scoring.
Gray had 18 points and 12 rebounds.
The team was without Salo who was ill.
Gienger, who is fighting a cold herself, said that despite all the setbacks, they’re still in a good spot.
“I like where we are as a team going into the end of the season,” she said. “It would have maybe helped our psyche if we beat Lakeside, but we definitely understand where we are.
“We’ve played at our opponents’ level, but we’ve been getting beat by a small amount of points. Our last week with (playing) seven games in 10 days six of them away against five ranked teams, if it doesn’t kill you it only makes you stronger.”
Bainbridge plays the Braves tonight at 7:30 p.m.
