While the head is still spinning from all the visits to the football practices, then three games in two states — 200 or so miles apart — in two nights, I must admit I am addicted to the rush of fall sports.
It is more than just the return of football — although the sport certainly is king in this business.
It is more than the results — Camas looked good at Qwest Field, and Mountain View dominated its rival.
Nope, the rush comes more from the smaller stories associated with high school sports.
Since Heritage made it to the Class 4A state softball title game and since Woodland won the 2A softball title, and ever since Camas defeated Columbia River in an epic baseball game in the Class 3A state semifinals at Safeco Field, well, there has been a void.
While it is nice to get a break, ever since spring sports left us, we’ve been missing something.
Now that fall sports are back, we can start sharing more stories.
Such as this one, from tiny King’s Way Christian.
The Knights won their girls soccer opener Tuesday afternoon. Just so happened to be the first girls soccer match in the school’s history.
“We didn’t really know what we had, how our team would do,” coach Chris Conway said. “We don’t know what the competition is like. It was all kind of a big surprise, a pleasant one.”
King’s Way beat Stevenson 5-1 to remain unbeaten in girls soccer since the beginning of time. (Hey, that’s quite an accomplishment.)
But here is a little more fun with that story. Heidi Fronk scored three goals in the victory. Sadie Josephson, Harper Christian, and Sarah Ferguson were three of the team’s defenders. The four of them are eighth-graders.
You see, at Class 1B programs, teams are allowed to use eighth-graders if there are not enough high school athletes to field a full squad.
For this week, King’s Way has 13 active players, another who is injured, and another who just came out for the team and does not have enough practices yet to be eligible to play. Of those 15 players, only one is a junior, and there are no seniors on the squad.
Now that’s a story.
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In today’s Columbian, we have a feature on a golfer from Hockinson who made a hole-in-one — on a par-4. No, it wasn’t in competition, but it was still cool. Later this week, we hope to share with you the story of some football players who became heroes during a medical emergency at a team trip a couple weeks ago.
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Here’s a note that did not make my game story for Skyview football nor did it go in my Day After Report on the high school sports blog.
Late in the first half, Sherwood, Ore., had just tied the game and kicked off to the Storm. There was a fumble on the play deep in Skyview territory. If the Bowmen recovered, they would have had enough time to try to score again.
Well, from the press box, and from Sherwood stands, and probably from the Skyview side, as well, it appeared the Bowmen had recovered.
A bunch of Sherwood players started pointing toward Skyview’s goal, indicating that it was their ball. The pile of players was getting smaller as the officials tried to find out who had the ball. Then most of the Sherwood players ran off the field in celebration, as if they were certain it was their ball.
Still, no signal from the officials.
This whole thing took a minute at the most, but there was one Skyview player still in the pile. And by the time the officials found the ball, Zack Brady had more of the ball than his Sherwood counterpart.
Officials ruled Skyview ball.
It was a great effort by Brady, who did not give up on the play.
Oh, and by the way, I hope it was Brady. You see, it looked from up in the press box it was No. 45 from Skyview who came away with the ball. But because of a printing miscue with the Skyview roster, only one digit per player was listed. Using my detective skills, I determined that a guy listed as Zach Brady was probably wearing No. 45.
Hope I’m right. If I’m wrong, then whoever you are from Skyview football who kept fighting for the ball, nice job.
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It’s those stories that keep me coming back for more. A bad roster here or there to drive us all a little crazy, eighth graders scoring in varsity matches, or even the Union Titans excited about playing under the lights at Qwest Field on Saturday. Even in defeat, they had a memorable day.
There are so many, and most have nothing to do with the final score.
Coaches, send me an e-mail if you have a story idea. Big or small, for the paper or for the blog, we want to tell the stories of the athletes in our community.
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.
