High School Sports Feature: Rogers' kid a heck of a ballplayer

So I'll plug Rogers High School in Spokane, Wash. any chance I can get. While their baseball team is winless, they do have one kid that is absolutely ripping the ball. Jacob Patridge is hitting an incredible .867.

I think I just heard the Texas Rangers call him up and sign him.

Now while the Pirates are at the bottom of the Greater Spokane League, the Central Valley Bears (11-2), University Titans (10-1) and Mead Panthers are the leaders of the pack. This is looking like it will be a pennant race right down to the very last game.

High School Feature: NC names new football coach

North Central was the GSL's version of the Detroit Lions last year in Spokane. And that certainly wasn't because of the efforts of the kids on the field, but they were outmatched and well... you don't keep running the ball when you're down by thirty.

Now NC has named a new head coach, Brian Gardner, who has been the freshman head coach and a varsity assistant. Hopefully he'll bring some fresh thinking to a school that needs some help. Here's a little tid bit: NC went 4-6 in 2004 and has won just four games since.

Yikes. However, I want to point out that NC is a 3A school and when you're a smaller school in the 3A-4A GSL, you kind of get screwed. You still have to play the big boys of 4A, even though you're just fighting against the 3A teams in the standings (but since your win-loses against the bigger teams count, those games still count - is this making any sense?).

So NC's struggles have been compounded by how the league has been set up. Hopefully, Gardner can change that - just as long as he doesn't step on the toes of my Rogers Pirates.

(Who by the way are (2-0 in football when I say they're going to win a game)

"Over the years it was always in the back of my mind (to be a head coach)," said Gardner. "I just didn't know when it would happen. When it came up a few years back I didn't feel I was ready. Four years later I felt it was the right time to put in for it."

(Quote taken from the Spokesman Review, story by Mike Vlahovich - the GSL sports god around these parts)

He's working hard on getting kids out for football from both high school and middle school levels, emphasizing the weight room and will add a strength training regimen.

That actually sounds like exactly what the doctor ordered for NC. Lets see what Gardner can do in the coming year.

High School Sports Feature: The Ballard of Rogers High School

Rogers High School qualified for the Washington State 3A Basketball tournament this year, the first time they've achieved the feat since 1975. 

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to pick apart this AP article about this east-side team:

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Rogers High School rarely enjoys much success in the major sports, but the Pirates are heading to the state basketball tournament for the first time since 1975.

Rogers is in the impoverished Hillyard neighborhood, and has long been a punching bag for the other teams in the Greater Spokane League.

"It's an amazing feeling," said captain and leading scorer Jesse Vaughan said before the team left for Tacoma on Tuesday. "We've been playing good. We're going to surprise some people when we get over there."

Granted, Rogers hasn't been racking in the trophies like Mead, LC or Ferris, but I love the "impoverished neighborhood" for a couple reasons...

(1) I live in that neighborhood. And the scariest thing I've seen in that place is the fellow who growls at me when he drives his scooter out to the mailbox.

(2) The thing about Spokane that's probably unique from any other city is that other than the south hill, it's a mish-mash of poor and affluent parts of the city. You can't sector it out to certain sections of the city and while I wouldn't say that Hillyard is Beverly Hills, it's not this slum that apparently the faltering AP thinks it is.

(3) Just because somebody doesn't have enough money to roll around in Escalades to soccer practice, put their house they can't afford up for mortgage to get their kids to a Pop Warner football tournament and get their teeth whitened every Sunday doesn't mean their "impoverished" try "working class." 

(4) Roger's isn't the punching bag anymore, have you seen North Central's athletic performances lately?

Now back to the article:

What makes Rogers' journey remarkable is the fact that the team posted a losing record of 9-11 during the regular season, dropping five of its last six league games. But it went on a three-win run in the regional playoffs.

"It was the greatest feeling," senior Zach Nelson said. "I didn't think it would happen, honestly. When I looked at the scoreboard, it brought tears to my eyes."

"Ever since we were freshmen, this group, the six seniors, told our (previous) coach we were going to state," captain Jake Partridge said. "It felt like it lifted a weight off our shoulders."

First-year coach Tim Woods is receiving lots of congratulations.

"I've received a lot of e-mails from people I've never talked to in my life," Woods said. "It's a good time for Rogers."

I'll say that while covering high school football this year my favorite sideline to be on was the Roger's Pirates, here's a team that won two games last year (one in the regular season and a post-season crossover with a Tri-City team) - with that first one snapping a losing streak that dated back to 2004. 

And you know what, it didn't matter. The kids were gamers and played some pretty close contests. They certainly had some quality athletes and what impressed me the most was the coaching. 

Get on the sideline of most high school football games and you'll be rather embarrassed by the amount of cursing, ego-waving and douchebaggery that goes on by the high school coaching staff - but the Roger's guys were supportive the entire way, excited when their kids made a big play and overall, I have to think they were a positive influence in these kids lives.

So just because a school doesn't make the state tournament in over 30 years doesn't give you a right to give them the Seattle snooty lookdown. And with that said, I think I just became a Roger's Pirates fan. 

I hope they win the GSL next year. Probably won't happen, but it will be a whole lot more fun following them than reading the AP... if they're still around next year.