Hanford High hires new coach from a Seattle football powerhouse program
Hanford High School named its new head football coach late Wednesday night, hiring Nick Baker.
Baker has been an assistant at O’Dea High School in Seattle, coaching under the legendary Monte Kohler.
Before that, Baker played quarterback at both Lake Stevens High School and Montana Tech.
Baker takes over the Falcons program in Richland from Brett Jay, who resigned after the 2019 season.
Other Mid-Columbia and Northwest sports news:
• Prosser graduate Kirby Moore is the wide receivers coach for Fresno State University’s football team. In 2020, he has been named the team’s passing game coordinator.
• Germain Barnes (Chiawana) won the men’s 60-meter hurdles final for Colorado State University at the Mountain West Conference Indoor Track Championships on Feb. 27-29.
Barnes, a sophomore, crossed the finish line in 8.01 seconds.
Freshman teammate Bailee Carr (Richland) ran the third leg of the women’s distance medley relay, as the Rams placed second with a time of 11 minutes, 43.64 seconds.
Carr also placed sixth in the women’s 800 meters with a time of 2:10.36.
• Wade Visker (Warden) was batting .333 (5 for 15) with five RBIs for Big Bend Community College’s baseball team (4-8) when the season was stopped last month. Teammate Tristan Garland (Connell) was 1-for-4 for a .250 batting average.
• American Legion Baseball announced Wednesday that it was canceling this year’s World Series and regional tournaments due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
ALB left it up to the individual state as to whether they play a season this summer.
Not long after ALB’s announcement, Washington State American Legion announced it too was canceling the 2020 season.
However, officials for both the Yakima Beetles and the Yakima Valley Pepsi Pak said their teams would be playing independent schedules this coming summer.
Jake Millbauer, head coach for the Kennewick Outlaws — who play in the same league as both the Beetles and the Pak — said Thursday morning that the Outlaws would do the same.
“We plan to play this summer as an independent team,” said Millbauer, who led the Outlaws to the Northwest Regionals last August. “The following year we will go back to legion. We still have some things up in the air like field availability, umpires and tournaments we signed up for, but we plan to play baseball.
“We will wait this out as long as possible.”
No news yet on what the Hanford Flames plan to do.
College news
• Columbia Basin College announced a few more signings this week of some of their current athletes headed to four-year programs.
We had already mentioned Shane Martin (Hanford) is headed to Northwest Nazarene University to pitch for the baseball team.
Trent Sellers (Kennewick), another pitcher, will move over to Lewis-Clark State College next year.
In women’s soccer, midfielder Megan Haugen (Richland) signed to play for Providence University in Montana.
And in men’s soccer, defender Jason Cortes (Kennewick) will compete this coming fall for Montana State University Billings.
• Kamiakin senior Garrett Grillo has signed a letter of intent to play men’s soccer this fall at North Idaho University.
• Hermiston senior Ezequiel Matthias Mendez will be playing men’s soccer this fall at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton.
• Sunnyside standout Kameran Rodriguez has agreed to play women’s basketball next season for Walla Walla Community College.
• Lane Community College’s women’s basketball program has signed to Walla Walla High School products for the 2020-21 season in Monica Miller and Emma Ogden.
• Walla Walla High School senior Julio Tapia will stay in Walla Walla, signing to play for the WWCC men’s soccer team this fall.
• Southridge senior Michael Dagarimore will continue his golfing career by playing for the Bellevue College men’s golf team next season.
• Royal’s Emma Wilhelm signed to play women’s basketball next season at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake.
• Royal’s Amy Sandoval is headed to Blue Mountain Community College this fall to play for the women’s soccer team.
• Walla Walla Community College’s Holly Golenor, who was named to the NWAC East first team all-star squad for women’s basketball, will continue on her collegiate career after signing a letter of intent to play at Corban University.
• The Air Force Academy has offered scholarships to Richland’s Ben Fewel and Royal’s Cooper Christensen. Both are wide receivers.
• Kamiakin’s Messiah Jones, a wide receiver, has received an offer from Central Washington University.
• Jones’ teammate, running back Tuna Altahir, has received his sixth D-1 football offer, this one from Fordham University.
• The Washington State Football Coaches Association announced Thursday morning that it was canceling the annual East-West all-star game, which was set for July.