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Friday, May. 09, 2008
Soccer notebook: CBL flexes muscle in 3A playoffs
By Jack Millikin, Herald staff writer
Coaches in the CBL 3A had marveled all season about how tough their league was.
The last week showed exactly how tough it's been.
In three regional games against the Greater Spokane League teams, the CBL swept the GSL out of the postseason in one fell swoop.
Kamiakin beat Mount Spokane 3-1 rather convincingly, Hanford upset the GSL's top 3A seed East Valley (Spokane) 3-2 and Sunnyside, the CBL 3A champ, made quick work of North Central 9-1.
"Kudos to our league," said Grizzlies coach Juan Pineda, who has reached the regional championship three times in the last four years, winning in 2005. "We were prepared for the playoffs because of the intensity of the league play."
Pineda had the facts to back it up. Some of Sunnyside's closest games -- and one of its losses, in fact -- came against the bottom two teams in the CBL standings, Kennewick and West Valley.
"In the (Mid-Valley) league, you had Hanford and West Valley. In this league, you have everybody," said Pineda, now in his sixth year with the Grizzlies. "West Valley beat us and ended up in last place, and Kennewick we beat 1-0 both times, once in overtime."
Sunnyside faces CBL foe East-mont for the regional title Saturday.
-- While Paul Kelly, a former Bechtel engineer and Kennewick native, continues to recover from an invasive strep infection that led to the amputation of his left forearm and the removal of the muscle in one of his calves, the community continues to pitch in.
Kelly's 15-year-old daughter, Catherine, is a member of the Kamiakin JV soccer team, and their crisis has inspired other families and organizations to chip in. For the last month, that has included painting the Kelly's house.
"I'm so impressed with the way people have been so moved and concerned," said Kamiakin girls coach Chris Erikson, who with her husband Lloyd, was part of a volunteer crew that worked on painting the house and fixing up the yard. "It's one thing to pull money out of your pocket, but it's another to spend the time helping."
Donations of time, equipment and money have come from Kelly's former co-workers at Bechtel, but several local businesses have also chipped in with a mechanical lift and paint.
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