Paul Valencia: Cheers all around at Camas, Mountain View

Did you know?

Here’s the list of 4A and 3A high school programs that qualified for state in team sports:

Camas: Football, girls soccer, volleyball, girls basketball, softball, boys soccer.

Mountain View: Football, boys basketball, baseball, softball, boys soccer.

Skyview: Football, girls basketball (state champion), baseball, boys soccer.

Union: Football, boys basketball, boys soccer.

Prairie: Volleyball, girls basketball (state champion), boys soccer.

Columbia River: Girls soccer, baseball.

Evergreen: Boys basketball.

The Camas Papermakers can add softball and boys soccer to a prestigious list.

Mountain View baseball, softball and boys soccer can go on it, too.

These are some of the teams that made it to the state tournament in their respective sports this spring. The Camas and Mountain View teams have plenty of company just at their schools.

This weekend marks the end of the 2011-12 high school sports year. We have had several individual state champions in various sports as well as a couple of team titles.

And a whole lot of celebrating at Class 3A Greater St. Helens League foes Camas and Mountain View.

Just counting the traditional team sports — these are the sports that only award team trophies and have no individual results — Camas topped the rest of the Class 4A and 3A athletic programs in Clark County. The Papermakers reached at least the round of 16 in football, girls soccer, volleyball, girls basketball, as well as softball and boys soccer.

(The round of 16 in basketball is technically called regionals, not state. However, all the other team sports consider the sweet 16 to be state participants, so I am including any basketball team that reached that round. And for the sake of argument in this column, calling it state.)

Mountain View was second in the roundup with football and boys basketball joining the three spring sports.

If you’ll notice, Camas had four girls teams make it state, while four boys teams from Mountain View made it.

A special shout out to Ryan Johnson of Mountain View. The senior went to state in three team sports — football, basketball, and baseball. We believe he is the only athlete among the big schools in Clark County to be able to make that claim.

Skyview led the 4A programs with four teams going to state, led by the state champion girls basketball team. Football finished second. Baseball got there for the first time in the program’s history, and boys soccer, in its first appearance at state, is still playing, in the final four this weekend.

Next year, Camas will be competing with Skyview in the 4A Greater St. Helens League. The Papermakers shined in their final season as a 3A program.

“We graduated a fairly talented senior class last year,” said Terry Cavender, Camas’ athletic director. “The perception across the board was we would be a little down. But we actually had a better year than the previous year. We are certainly proud of our seniors.”

Making it to state is a big deal for any program, any school. Having multiple teams, in multiple seasons, boosts school pride on campus. Mountain View, for example, has plenty of students following their teams. The school had a couple of rooter buses to Bellevue for one basketball game. Many of the fans are athletes themselves, cheering on their classmates.

“As you look at this year as a whole, it speaks to the quality of students we have at Mountain View,” said Adam Mathieson, the school’s athletic director. “There are a lot of great programs in Southwest Washington. Obviously, we’re extremely proud of our kids, coaches, and fans for making it to state in that many sports.”

Among the big schools from Clark County, there are four more chances for team state titles this weekend — Camas softball, Mountain View softball, Skyview boys soccer, Mountain View boys soccer.

The Skyview and Prairie girls basketball teams won state titles just hours apart in the winter.

It would be cool if two more teams could do the same Saturday.

But even if that does not happen, it has been a memorable school year for a number of our teams, a little more for those at Camas and Mountain View.

Paul Valencia covers high school sports for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4557 or e-mail at paul.valencia@columbian.com