We are on a quest this winter.
A couple of years ago, The Columbian made a pledge to send a reporter to cover every high school football game played in Clark County. And since making that pledge, we haven’t made it every game, but pretty darn close.
Now I’m sure there are basketball fans who would like The Columbian to make a similar commitment to their sport.
There are two problems with that. First, there are twice as many basketball teams in Clark County than there football teams. And, two, basketball teams play twice as many games.
But this season, The Columbian has made one pledge to basketball fans.
We pledge to send a reporter to at least one game this season of every local team in Class 2A and above. That’s 30 teams.
Our goal is 30. And if we hit that, we’ll keep going to get 1A teams, too.
So far, we’re off to a good start.
Columbian preps reporter Paul Valencia opened the basketball season by attending six games over the first five days — Camas-Columbia River boys, Fort Vancouver-Hudson’s Bay girls, a doubleheader of Mountain View-Washougal, Camas-Prairie girls and Fort Vancouver-Evergreen boys.
So that’s 12 teams down, 18 to go to catch all teams 2A and above — 25 to go to get the 1As and above.
We’ve got more games on the schedule, including some league games in the 4A and 2A Greater St. Helens League, as well as 1A Trico League.
In fact, Friday is rivalry day in Clark County. Prairie and Battle Ground meet in a girls/boys doubleheader at Battle Ground, the Skyview boys travel to play Columbia River and you have the zip code battle when Camas plays at Union in the 4A GSHL boys basketball league opener.
All-Region
People have been asking about our fall All-Region teams, now that the votes for volleyball, girls soccer and football have closed.
Well, we’ve taken that input, added in the coaches’ picks and our own to comprise the final All-Region teams.
We will unveil them this week.
Starting Tuesday, we will announce the runner of the year and All-Region team for girls cross country, followed by boys cross country on Wednesday.
Later in the week will come the others — volleyball, girls soccer, girls swimming and football. Boys golf and tennis will be selected in the spring, after the state tournaments.
Athletes of the week
Our athlete of the week vote will take a different twist as the first vote of the winter season starts Monday.
You’ll notice at the top of Page B1 the five nominees for this week’s honor.
On Friday, when we run the result of this week’s ballot, we will include the photos of all five nominees — because the real honor here is being nominated — across the top of Page B1 of the Sports section.
