Tri-Cities high school athletes can start practice — but not without some hurdles
The Mid-Columbia is getting closer to getting its high school sports back — although there is still a long ways to go.
Monday marks the beginning of the out-of-season coaching period that was approved by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association executive board in July.
That means sports coaches are allowed to coach their players in a period through Nov. 28.
On Friday, the Benton-Franklin Health District sent out a notice that was supportive of local schools resuming athletic training activities under the Phase 2 guidelines of the WIAA guidance for opening up high school athletics and activities.
The health district says all schools and school districts in Benton County, North Franklin (Connell) and Kahlotus can consider adding athletic training activities starting Oct. 1.
Pasco School District schools can do the same thing starting Oct. 15.
Now, in Phase 2 sports — among other things — workouts are permitted in small pods of five athletes or less, but “no sharing of the same ball.”
That doesn’t translate well for many sports, including football and basketball. But it’s a start here in the state of Washington.
And it’s going in the right direction.
Three months from Monday is Dec. 28, the date when winter sports — boys and girls basketball, girls bowling, boys swimming and diving, girls gymnastics, and boys and girls wrestling — are set to begin.
More notes
• The Major League Baseball playoffs begin Tuesday in various cities, and there are enough teams with local connections to follow. All series are best-of-3.
The Milwaukee Brewers will play top seed Los Angeles Dodgers, and Richland High grad Eric Yardley is a reliever with the Brewers. So are former Tri-City Dust Devils pitcher Eric Lauer and infielder Luis Urias.
San Diego, with former Tri-City Dust Devils Fernando Tatis, Jr., and pitchers David Bednar, Joey Lucchesi and Adrian Morejon, will play St. Louis.
Houston (with ex-Tri-City catcher Dustin Garneau) takes on Minnesota.
Oakland (and former Dust Devils catcher Austin Allen) will play the Chicago White Sox.
And the New York Yankees, with former Dust Devil Mike Tauchman, plays the Cleveland Indians, with ex-Dust Devil pitchers Cal Quantrill and Phil Maton.
• The Tri-City Americans signed bantam pick Carter Savage on Sept. 14.
Carter, a defenseman, comes out of the Delta Hockey Academy in British Columbia.
He was a sixth-round selection in this year’s Western Hockey Bantam draft.
It also means the Ams have signed their top five selections from the bantam draft.
• Three of the better boys basketball players in Washington have verbally committed to major college powers nowhere near the Northwest.
O’Dea’s Paolo Banchero committed to Duke, while Eastside Catholic’s Nolan Hickman is headed to Kentucky. Both announced their decisions in August.
Hickman, in fact, took nothing to chance this summer, transferring to Wasatch Academy in Utah in order to get a full basketball season in this school year.
High school basketball in Washington has been cut to just 14 regular-season games per team, down from 20. Basketball in this state is set to begin Dec. 28.
On Friday, O’Dea’s John Christofilis announced he is committed to playing for Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.
• Former Tri-City American Michael Rasmussen is being loaned by the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings to the Graz 99ers of Austria in the Ernst Bank Liga.
The 21-year-old played one season, 2018-19, for the Red Wings, taking part in 62 games, and scoring 8 goals and 10 assists.
Last season, Rasmussen played for the Grand Rapids Griffins in the American Hockey League. He scored 7 goals and 15 assists in 35 games.
Rasmussen spent three full seasons with the Americans, playing one game in the 2014-15 season before embarking on a run with the team from 2015-18.
His totals? He played in 161 games for the Ams, scoring 81 goals and 76 assists.
• Former TC Am Matt McKenzie has signed a one-year deal with Austrian team Dornbirn of the Bet-At-Home Liga.
Last season, the 28-year-old defenseman played for German team Bad Tolz in the DEL2 league, scoring 8 goals and 51 assists in 52 games. McKenzie’s assist numbers led his team, and he was tied for second in the league in that category.
McKenzie played in 33 games for the Ams in the 2010-11 season, scoring 5 goals and 10 assists. He spent the next seven seasons with teams in the American Hockey League and the East Coast Hockey League before giving Europe a try.
• Royal senior quarterback Caleb Christensen has received a football scholarship offer from Virginia Military Institute.
The 6-foot-3, 200-pound pro-style QB has three offers so far: VMI, Whitworth University in Spokane, and Whittier College in California.
• Former Tri-Cities Prep quarterback Dante Mauiri is the starting quarterback for Hellgate High in Missoula, Mont., and the team is 1-2 so far.
Mauiri transferred to Missoula to get a chance at a full high school season, and last week he received an offer from Whittier College in California.
• Former Tri-City American center Parker Bowles, 25, has signed a one-year contract with German team Hannover Indians in the Oberliga Nord.
Last season, Bowles played in 47 games for Czech Republic team Orli Znojmo in the Erste Bank Liga, where he scored 6 goals and 18 assists.
Bowles played for the Americans from 2011-16 — four full seasons — where he tallied 231 games played, 88 goals and 138 assists.
• Kennewick High senior catcher Jackson Lind figures it’ll be 18 months before he gets to play a competitive baseball game with his teammates.
Lind, who I talked to on a Sports in the Tri podcast a few weeks ago, injured his groin at the end summer of 2019 — not a good thing for a catcher — and has since recovered. But, of course, there was no baseball to be played this past spring and summer because of COVID-19.
So he’ll be champing at the bit to play this coming May and June for Kennewick High.
Then he’ll get ready for college baseball at Seattle University, where he’ll begin his goal of becoming a doctor.
Lind, who admits he’s a science nerd (nothing wrong with that), can be heard on the podcast at ParkerHodge.com.