Othello starts wrestling season off with a big win
High school winter sports have picked up quickly, and will do so even more, now that the WIAA state football championships finished in the Tacoma Dome on Saturday.
The first big local wrestling tournament happened Saturday at Kennewick High School with the Bob Mars Invitational.
Othello used the individual titles of sophomore Josiah Barrera at 113 pounds, senior Roberto Ramirez at 132, sophomore Arturo Solorio at 145, sophomore Nathan Garza, Jr., at 152, and junior Isaiah Perez at 285 to run away with the team title.
Garza and Perez were especially impressive. Garza rolled through four matches with three pins and a technical fall.
Perez, a standout football player who has NCAA Division I schools looking at him, earned three pins in times of 48 seconds, 1:55, and 55 seconds in the title match.
Led by titles from junior Tyson Stover at 182 pounds and freshman Isaiah Anderson at 195, Chiawana finished second as a team.
Richland senior Patrick Workman also won a title, finishing first at 170 pounds. Freshman Eduardo Sanchez-Guitier rolled up two pins and an 8-5 decision in the title match at 106 pounds to give host Kennewick a victory.
▪ Hanford’s boys went up to Yakima on Saturday and won the team title at the Davis Invite. Hayden Henry (182 pounds) and Jonathan Burt (220) each won individual titles for the Falcons.
▪ Sunnyside’s EJ Villanueva (120) and Andrew Macias (132) won individual crowns at the White River Invite.
Girls wrestling
Hanford sophomore Taylor Wilson had a big weekend, winning not one but two tournament titles.
Wilson, the defending state champion at 100 pounds, won Friday at the girls’ portion of the Bob Mars Invite.
Then she moved up to 105 pounds on Saturday and out-grappled an 11-wrestler field to win the Central Valley Invite.
Other highlights from Bob Mars included a team win for Othello, with Hanford second and Pasco third.
Individual champs included Othello’s Emily Mendez at 110 pounds, Pasco’s Jazmine Mercado at 115, Hanford’s Taylor Robbins at 120, Othello’s Denise Guerra at 125 and Othello teammate Jackie Peguero at 130, Walla Walla’s Annalise Whitaker at 135, Pasco’s Margaret Macduff at 140, Columbia-Burbank’s Katelynn Brashear at 145, Kennewick’s Ayanna Asselin at 155, Kennewick’s Alexia Asselin at 170, Hanford’s Grace Nelson at 190, and Royal’s Marissa Dela Rosa at 235.
The Lions’ Asselin sisters have a third sister competing. Aubreyanna Asselin, who like Ayanna is a freshman, met her sister in the 155-pound semifinals before being pinned at 5:57 – just 3 seconds before the end of the match. Aubreyanna came back and finished third.
Prep basketball
I took in the Sunnyside at Kamiakin boys-girls doubleheader on Friday. Here are a couple observations:
1. Never sleep on Kamiakin senior Oumou Toure. I don’t think Sunnyside did, but Toure had just 5 points at halftime before scoring 21 in the second half to lead the Braves (ranked No. 2 in the Class 3A state preseason poll by the Seattle Times) to a 63-57 win over Sunnyside (ranked 5th in Class 4A by the Times).
The fourth quarter was especially telling. Toure scored 11 points in a game-ending 15-9 Kamiakin run that included a number of offensive putbacks. There is a reason that Butler University of the Big East Conference signed her.
2. Sunnyside is equally good, especially Santa Clara-bound Ashlee Maldonado. She does a good job of getting her teammates involved in the offense, but she can score when it’s needed. She finished with 18 points.
3. Sophomore Daniel Singleterry became a star Friday night, sinking seven treys and scored 30 points to lead the Grizzlies boys past Kamiakin 58-54. Singleterry made clutch shot after clutch shot, all the while with the Kamiakin student section riding him hard.
4. Kamiakin has a freshman, Trey Arland, who is going to be good. He’s 6-5 and starts, was looked to for key shots, and can get inside and mix it up. He finished with 14 points. Teammate Jim Mohlman scored 16.
▪ Earl Streufert’s Richland boys basketball team leaves this week for Orem, Utah, where they’ll play three games in as many days in the Great Western Shootout. The Bombers open up Thursday at 6:30 p.m., against host Orem.
On Friday at 4 p.m., they’ll play against private school-power Wasatch Academy. On Saturday, tournament officials will have determined the best matchups from a 10-team field that also includes schools from California, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona and British Columbia. The last two games of the day Saturday will be televised locally in Utah.
▪ The Chiawana boys keep rolling along. The Riverhawks beat visiting Moses Lake 61-55 on Saturday night, as Matthew Kroner had 17 points and 13 rebounds, while teammate Seth Schmidt added 11 points and 12 boards.
▪ Despite 13 points from Macey Morales and 12 more from Alyssa Agundis, the Chiawana girls lost their season opener to visiting Moses Lake 56-48 before the boys game.
▪ Prosser’s Haden Hicks seems to be back. The sophomore was a star receiver for the football team this fall when he broke three vertebrae in a regular-season game against Ellensburg. But on Friday, Hicks scored 31 points to lead the Mustangs to a 68-65 CWAC victory over Ephrata.
Prep football
Union of Vancouver pounded Lake Stevens 52-20 in the Class 4A title game on Saturday night. Anyone who saw Union come to Pasco in September and pound a good Chiawana football team 41-9 wouldn’t be surprised.
The game against the Riverhawks was actually tight in the first half, with Union leading 13-9. But the Titans exploded for four touchdowns in just 4 minutes and 36 seconds early in the third quarter.
They had a lot of weapons that night, and those same weapons showed up Saturday against Lake Stevens.
Obituary
Former Pay ’n Pak unlimited hydroplane owner Dave Heerensperger passed away on Sunday. He was 82.
The Longview, Wash., native spent over 20 years in unlimited racing as either a sponsor or owner. Heerensperger sponsored the Miss Spokane in 1963 when the team needed financing.
He became an owner in 1967, self-sponsoring the boat and team as Miss Eagle Electric. It would eventually change to Pay ’n Pak, and in the 1970s, along the Columbia River shoreline, you were either a Pay ’n Pak fan or a Miss Budweiser fan. You couldn’t be both.
Heerensperger’s teams won 25 unlimited races, two Gold Cups and three national high point titles. He also lost two drivers along the way in boat racing accidents, and when John Walters nearly died in the Pak in 1982 at Seafair, he announced his retirement from the sport and sold the team to Steve Woomer.
Heerensperger retired as CEO of Pay ’n Pak Hardware stores in 1989, then founded Eagle Hardware and Garden stores before retiring again in 1997.
After boat racing, Heerensperger got into horse racing, and helped get Emerald Downs built in Auburn in 1996. He owned a horse, Millenium Wind, that finished 11th in the 2001 Kentucky Derby.
Extra
▪ Kennewick’s Mason Machart signed last month to play baseball next year at St. Martin’s University in Lacey.
▪ Pasco senior offensive lineman Davion Pruitt has received an offer to play football at Central Washington University.
▪ Katie Hinckley, the long-time volleyball coach at West Valley of Yakima who just led her team to the state 4A title a few weeks ago (in a title win over Richland), announced last week she was stepping down.
▪ Infielder Shawn O’Malley, a Southridge High grad who at one time played for the Seattle Mariners, was released by the Colorado Rockies on Nov. 2. He had been with the Rockies’ Triple-A team in Albuquerque this past season.
▪ Kiona-Benton grads Gabby and Mihaela Edwards were members of the Spokane Community College volleyball team this fall that went 40-0 en route to winning the NWAC title. The sisters didn’t get to see much action this fall as freshmen on a sophomore-dominated team, but they’ll definitely get a chance to see a lot more playing time next year.
▪ In the Where-Are-They-Now Department, Hanford grad Kendall Watson and Kamiakin grad Hayden Nelson have found new basketball teams to play for this season. Watson started his collegiate careers at Lewis-Clark State College before transferring to play at Walla Walla Community College.
This season, he’s at Warner Pacific University, where the junior is starting for the 8-2 Knights. Nelson played at Corban University for one season before ending up at Central Washington University. The sophomore comes off the bench for the 4-4 Wildcats, averaging almost 10 minutes a game.