High School Sports Feature: 3A SPSL/WCC Sub District Track Meet

Yesterday was the first half of the 3A South Puget Sound League and Western Cascade Conference Sub District meet.

I wasn't able to make it out for it, but the match proved to have a number of high lights. Thanks to athletic.net for keeping us up-to-date on the results.

The finals in field events for boys were: Discus, pole vault and long jump.

Let's start with the pole vault. It was no surprise that Gabe Cadero-Smith of Yelm High School walked away with the gold in the event. He had lead among all the participants in the league all season. At the meet he jumped 13 feet 6 inches for the win.

White River's Austin Shirey, who I featured last week, finished in a three way tie for third at 12 feet even. The top seven performers in each event will move on to districts next weekend at Mount Tahoma High School.

In the long jump the victory went to Spencer Marr. Marr, of Clover Park High School, dominated the performance with a distance of 21 feet 2 1/4 inches. Second place was Quentin Sison from Timberline High School with a jump of 20 feet 7 3/4 inches.

Over at the discus Darrien Creamer won with a throw of 155 feet 11 inches. The junior from Peninsula High School has the fourth best throw in the state this year at 168 feet 5 inches. However, two of the throwers in front of him are also in 3A.

The only final from the running events was the 1600 meter. Marcus Dickson of White River won the event in 4:26. Dickson is only a freshman.

The rest of the events will be decided this afternoon.

On the girls side the following field events were final: high jump, long jump, javelin and shot put.

Over at the shot put pit Tiara Killmer of Bonney Lake won by almost three feet with her throw of 39 feet 11 inches. Second place was Christi Ometu of Auburn Mountainview with a throw of 37 feet 1/4 inch.

The javlin was won by Sasha Weber of Timberline. Weber let loose a throw of 114 feet 7 inches. Weber is also only a freshman.

Weber also took away the gold in the high jump. She won at 5 foot 6 inches which was 6 inches higher than second place.

In the long jump Stephanie Schreiner from Enumclaw High School won with a jump of 17 feet 1 3/4 inch. Second was Briana Welsh of Timberline at 16 feet 1 inch.

On the track Ashley Taylor of Yelm High School won the 3200 meters by 11 seconds with the time of 11:31. Second was Theresa Edwards of Bonney Lake in 11:42.

Today are the finals in the rest of the events and it will be decided who moves on to Districts.

Gonzaga needs to do something in this tournament

Spokane collectively held its breath yesterday as Akron gave a valiant fight against the Gonzaga Bulldogs. They certainly had upset in their eyes, but the Zags proved to be too much for them - pulling away at the end for the 77-64 victory.

What should be promising to Spokanites is the fact that the Zips put up a battle (hard fouls and tough defense) and Gonzaga responded. Sure they came out flat for the game, something that wasn't lost by the announcers, but at least they turned it up when it mattered.

Now that being said, the Zags need to do something in this tournament because their reputation is at stake here. Long have they been the media darlings and frankly, some people are starting to grumble about when the Bulldogs are going to "get over the hump." One Sweet Sixteen appearance in the last seven years is really "all" Gonzaga has to show.

That may seem a little harsh but if you think about the label that is put on the program as "elite" - you've got to show more than getting knocked out in the first round the past two years. 

It seems like they have a good shot to make the Sweet Sixteen this year since they're in Portland which basically means they're playing in front of a home crowd and they'll have to beat low-seeded Western Kentucky to go there. Beating a 13-seed and a 12-seed to go to the Sweet Sixteen? These are games that the Zags should win.

And please, don't give me the whole "they're Spokane's team, we should support them anyways" because Gonzaga carries themselves like an Elite program and they need to show they can produce like an elite program. No incarnation of the Zags since 1999  has gotten back to the Elite Eight despite all the prized recruits, the shiny new arena and the media attention. 

Spokane still supports their teams no matter what, but the local media sure tends to butter them up regardless of whether they get shown the door early or not. 

I'm convinced that if this were a bigger market - people would be calling for Mark Few's head (which by the way, did you see the Zags inability to rotate on defense against the three? Just saying). Not that it's warrented, but he'd certianly have more pressure on him as opposed to the campfire song treatment he gets in this town everytime they beat a crummy WCC team.

You don't make a splash in this year's tournament - you have to look at this season as a disappointment. Many people had this team going to the FINAL FOUR in the preseason.

I'm sorry but if you have a program that's so big that the head coach wont even show up to his own coaches show - you better do a hell of a lot more than lose to Western Kentucky in the second round. That's all I'm saying.

Things that the WCC is good at

(1) Losing to Gonzaga
(2) Awarding the Conference MVP trophy to somebody that looks like Chunk from the Goonies.
(3) Having the conference tournament in Las Vegas which totally fits in with the whole Private Catholic School setting.
(4) Producing NBA point guards that kick butt.
(5) Producing NBA players with terrible fashion sense.
(6) Always there for a good laugh.

Gonzaga Weekly Update: Look Ma! We're highly ranked again

I'm sure people can obviously tell I'm not the biggest Gonzaga homer on the face of the planet. In fact, I've written articles about how much I hate the Bulldogs (from an Eastern Washington standpoint). That makes it so much more easier to call BS when the Zag hype machine gets rolling again.

For a while it was sedated because... let's face it, Gonzaga had a stretch in there where they absolutely SUCKED. Hands down, right after that loss to UConn, they wet the bed.

However, surprise, surprise, they hit the conference schedule slate and get on a roll mainly because the WCC is made up of good, quality GSL teams.

The GSL is the high school league in Spokane if you all out there were wondering.

And the one time to give them any sort of fight was St. Mary's which had a 15-game winning streak heading into their showdown at the MAC. And frankly they should have defeated the Zags.

But Patty Mills hand apparently didn't agree. The Gaels star had 18 points in the first half before breaking it. Then Gonzaga was able to take the seven-point victory in the second half. And we won't see St. Mary's at full force again because Mills is out for four weeks meaning that he'll be on the bench when the Zags travel down to face them.

And meanwhile, Gonzaga moved up to No. 18 in the polls.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm quoting my good friend Dylan Kitzan when I say that the "Zags cannot guard a team with one star player"... look at the Davidson game last year.

This season has first-round exit all over it again. I hope no one is getting their hopes up this year. That would be like thinking the next Tom Cruise movie is going to be a good one.

Gonzaga Weekly Update: Anyone in the WCC going to give up a fight?

Can someone please give Gonzaga a fight in conference play? In three WCC games so far the Zags have won by a combined margin of 247-154, a complete smoke-fest by the Spokane Golden Boys.

At least they play Memphis in Febuary to give them some sort of semblance of competition.

However, all three of those games were at home in the friendly confines of the MAC, which a student section that could probably rumble with a group of soccer hooligans from Europe. Now they have to hit the road against Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount.

Here's a couple questions they'll have to answer during that road trip next weekend:

1. Is Austin Daye the man when it comes to scoring? He's led the Zags in scoring the past two games with 20 and 25 points. With Jeremy Pargo dishing, Josh Heytvelt rebounding and staying away from drugs and Ira Brown working on his baseball swing - I think things are solid for the Zags on offense. Which leads us to our next question:

2. Can the Zags play defense when they really need to? I mean, sure you can blow out somebody by 30, but it's only a matter of time before a WCC team takes a swing at the champ. And we saw in close games against ranked teams that wasn't the case.

Alright, take that, chew on it for a while.

What's going on in the world of Hoops

It feels like its 1984 again. Not only have I gained so much weight from blogging that my basketball shorts are now "short shorts" but the Lakers and Celtics are the two best teams in the NBA. And it's not even close, it's those two teams beating the brains out of everyone else and then there's Lebron moonlighting with the Cavaliers.

Sound familar? Sound like the exact same conditions that a certain Bulls dynasty came to be? Hmmmm.

And how are our newly beloved Portland Trailblazers doing? Well let's take a look.

They're 15-10 so far this season, coming off of a embarrassing loss to the lowly LA Clippers, who picked a perfect time to suck - with the Lakers being so dominant there's no way anyone will pay attention to the JV LA squad.

Washington product Brandon Roy is doing his thing, averaging 22 points per game and five rebounds. While the big guy that everyone expects to be the savior of the Rose City is averaging eight points and eight rebounds a game.

Then there's LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Fernandez - they've been having what you might call a pretty good season. Averaging 17 and 11 points respectively. It seems that the rise of the Portland Trailblazers might go a little quicker than expected.

In the world of college basketball, we've got a mixed bag.

Gonzaga gets its first defeat of the season and my prediction of a possible No. 1 ranking goes to hell.

Washington State defeats Montana State in Seattle after being blown out by Gonzaga last week. Good for them, nothing says NCAA Tournament like beating a Big Sky team.

At least they blew out the Big Sky team they were playing, Washington barely squeaked by Portland State. They seem to have trouble with teams for the Rose City as early in the year they lost to the University of Portland (of the WCC).

Now the Huskies will play Eastern Washington, who is coming off of a vacation in Hawaii where they lost by 20 points to the Warriors. No matter though as they're still one of the pleasant suprises in college basketball this year. This will be a good test against the Huskies, who could be either really good this year, or disappointing.

Should I talk about the Thunder? Nah, didn't think so.

Well that sucked...

I was pretty excited for this Gonzaga-WSU Basketball game last night. With the last three games going the Cougars way, it was going to be interesting to see how the Bulldogs reacted playing down in Pullman against a young but talented team.

And they blew WSU out.

The "scary" thing about this is that the Zags made the Cougars look very pedestrian - and they're not. They scored 74 points against a defense that likes to get their opponents in the low 40s. They played in a hectic road environment that is about as close as a NCAA Tournament game as you'll get. They took control of the game and never looked back.

And I never looked back, heck I stopped watching the game when the Zags went up by 30. No way the ball-control offense of WSU was going to make it a game after that point.

In fact, I'm pretty sure everyone stopped watching at that point. This was suppose to be a win-win situation if both teams play a close, exciting contest. Instead it was kind of like watching the Super Bowl when it's a blowout.

"Where's the chips? Let's go in the other room and play Madden"

This Zag team made short work of the Cougars (who now have a lot of question marks) and have a chance to do some big, big, big things this year.

And I don't just mean winning the WCC Championship.