Venema clears 12 feet and two Cougars win at Boardman meet
Andrew Christiansen
Reporter
Athletes from four Washington schools traveled to Boardman on Saturday to take on Oregon in the Columbia River Invitational. Three events were won by the Washington stars: the boys’ 400 by Lyle-Wishram’s Cody Carlsen, the girls’ 800 by Teaera Churchwell, also from Lyle-Wishram, and the pole vault by Bickleton’s Nic Venema.
Carlsen also placed second in the 100 and 200 meter sprints. All three event times were very close to his personal records, as qualifying for State approaches. The Lyle-Wishram boys placed fifth in the meet out of 19 teams. Churchwell also had a top five finish in the 100 meters and was ninth in the 200.
Venema was locked into a three-way battle in the pole vault with Justis Weaver, of Elgin, and Corbin Hegdal, of Weston-McEwen. Venema struggled to make 11-6 in three vaults, but on his first attempt at 12 feet, Venema sailed over the bar with room to spare, setting a new PR. Weaver missed at 12 feet and Hegdal took three tries before he cleared the mark. Venema attempted 12-3 while Hedgal passed to 12-6. Neither jumper cleared the new heights, giving Venema the win by virtue of fewer misses.
There were many other top five performances and PRs set at Boardman and at other meets last week at Cle Elum and Yakima.
Goldendale
Braydon Ross shattered his old PR in the javelin at Cle Elum with a toss of 154-9. His old mark was 135 feet. He also had a PR in the discus at Cle Elum with a toss of 122-7, and was fourth at Boardman in the shot with a PR toss of 44-2. Irene Goble was first in 800 meters in Cle Elum, second at Boardman; Sadie Shattuck first in shot put at Cle Elum, second at Boardman, first in discus at Cle Elum; Andrea Keffeler first in long jump and triple jump at Cle Elum, fourth in both events at Boardman; Sarah Lancaster first in 100 meters and 100 hurdles at Cle Elum; Lexy Knowlton fifth in 100 hurdles at Boardman; Nichole Seward first in 400 meters at Cle Elum; Torey Spaulding-Jimenez was fourth in the 400 at Boardman in a season best time of 55.17 and was under 12 seconds for his first time ever in the 100 at Boardman; Ben Shafer had a PR in the high jump at Boardman, clearing 5-4 for fifth place; Patrick Golding won the 100 meters in 12.34 at Cle Elum and knocked nearly two seconds off his PR in the 300 hurdles at 44.67, for third; Logan Humphreys won the triple jump at Cle Elum with a 37-3 leap, and he won the high jump at 5-4; also at Cle Elum, Kyle Welsh was a double winner in the hurdles; Goldendale’s boys and girls 4x400 relay teams won at Cle Elum, as did the girls 4x200 and boys 4x100.
Bickleton
Nic Venema had a PR 12.27 in the 100, an incredible six-tenths of a second improvement in his time, and he was third in the pole vault at the Cadet Invite in Yakima; Edgar Molina won the shot put at Yakima and was third in the discus at Boardman and second in the discus at Yakima; Hendrik Heldahl won the high jump at 5-6 in Yakima and was third in Boardman, equaling his top mark of 5-8; Holly Goodnight was second in the discus with a PR 94-6 toss at Boardman and third at Yakima with a 92-10; Taylor Brown was third in the high jump at Yakima, clearing 5-4; the girls 4x200 relay placed second at Yakima.
Lyle-Wishram
Carlsen won the 100, 200 and 400 meter events at the Cadet Invite; Henry Matai won the 110 hurdles at Yakima and set a PR in the event with a 16.09 at Boardman, he was second in the 300 hurdles and fifth in the discus; Churchwell won the 800 meters at Yakima and placed second in the 100 and 200 meters; Kyle Murphy was third in the 400 and third in the javelin at Yakima; Nolan Smith set a new PR of 117-4 in the discus.
TLG was also entered at the Cadet Invite and had good results in a number of events, including: Liz Vogt, second in high jump and triple jump, third in 800 meters; Krissy Yarnell second in shot put at 31-0 and second in pole vault; Brian Langfield second in pole vault at 12-0; Katie Yarnell second in pole vault at 8-0; Val Vogt, second in the 3200 in 12:57.5; Amanda Zoller third in the 100 hurdles in 18.11.
Both singles and top two doubles seeded in boys’ west sub-district
Andrew Christiansen
Reporter
Goldendale’s boys’ tennis team rolled up three more wins last week and are beginning to look as if they can roll several players right to State, which begins May 28. Singles players, Tom Kussman and Keith Bighorn were seeded at sub-district, as were the top two boys’ doubles teams of Adrian Sanchez and Zach Shattuck and Seth Conboy and Kurt Wilkins. The only girls to be seeded were the recently formed doubles team of Stacy Thompson and Kelcey Walker. All others are added to the brackets by luck of the draw.
Winding down the season, the boys defeated Zillah and Naches Valley by 4-1 scores and swept White Swan 5-0 to push their team record to 10-3. The girls had a disappointing 2-3 loss to Zillah with wins coming from the doubles teams of Rachel Kipfer and Leah Montgomery 6-3, 6-2, and Kendall Bloom and Thais Dutra 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. Bloom and Dutra will compete as singles at sub-district. Naches Valley defeated the girls 5-0 for the second time this year and White Swan forfeited their match to the girls.
Sub-district begins Saturday at the Yakima Tennis Club and concludes on Monday. It is a double elimination tournament with four singles and four doubles advancing to District at Sunnyside, May 21-22. Four from District advance to State.
Kussman and Bighorn will be tough through the playoffs. Kussman has an 8-2 record against the opponent’s top singles players. Bighorn is undefeated (8-0) as the number two singles player. The pair of Conboy and Wilkins has been playing as the number two doubles through most of the season and are 9-1, losing only to Columbia Burbank. The number one doubles team of Sanchez and Shattuck lost to Naches Valley, but won 6-0, 6-1 against White Swan and won the first set 6-2 against Zillah before a Zillah player had to retire due to injury.
Thompson and Walker racked up wins as singles players and continued to win when Coach Carla Wilkins made them her top doubles team. Their only loss came against Naches Valley.
Goldendale played a make-up match against Cle Elum on May 11.
Wins over Granger could put Wolves in District playoffs
Andrew Christiansen
Reporter
A tough, eight inning loss to Mabton last week, put a little more pressure on the Timberwolf softball team and their end-of-season bid to make the playoffs. But, a pair of games in Goldendale against winless Granger this Saturday and Mabton playing undefeated Cle Elum will in all likelihood put the Timberwolves in the playoffs in the number four spot.
Things were looking pretty good for Goldendale when they scored three times in the eighth inning of the opener at Mabton. It came on the heels of an escape from a bases loaded situation in the bottom of the seventh, but credit Mabton for not quitting. Four hits and two fielding mistakes by Goldendale gave the Vikings an important 8-7 win. Taylor Gaston homered for Goldendale in the game and struck out eight from the mound.
A different Goldendale team took the field in the second game, looking for their first league win. Haley Hoffman went the distance, scattering four hits in a 19-1 blowout. The Timberwolves played error-free ball and Alex Counts cracked a three-run homerun. Hoffman and Sarah Henderson each went 3-4 in the game.
The win was nice, but more work was to be done, as second place Naches Valley lay ahead and Goldendale was still two games behind fourth place Mabton.
A solid effort in game one at Naches gave the Wolves reason to be optimistic. The Rangers Katelin Heide held the Wolves to four hits, two of which were doubles by Hoffman and Crysta Counts, as the Rangers won 6-3 on the strength of a three-run fourth inning.
Goldendale chased Heide from game two after gaining a 3-1 lead after three innings. The bats came alive in the fifth as each team plated six runs. The Timberwolves played errorless ball in the field, including three double plays, the final one unassisted by Hoffman, ending the game. Insurance runs were scored in the sixth and seventh as Goldendale won 13-7. Naches Valley was knocked out of a home spot for the playoffs and Goldendale closed within a game of the coveted fourth place.
Mabton can clinch the fourth spot with two wins over Cle Elum. Two wins by Cle Elum and two wins by Goldendale will put Goldendale in the playoffs. Should Mabton and Goldendale tie, the tie-breaker will be played on a neutral field on May 17. The crossover tournament will have the number four team in the SCAC west play at the number one team in the SCAC east on May 20 at 4 p.m. |
