11 Mid-Columbia athletes on Washington’s Top 100 high school football player list

Yes, we know that the start of high school football is now set for February.

But that didn’t stop the crack team at Scorebook Live Washington to name its top 100 Washington high school football players for the 2020-21 school year.

There was no numeral ranking system. Players were named in alphabetical order, and the Mid-Columbia had 11 players listed.

Here they are (in alphabetical order):

• Tuna Altahir, Kamiakin’s senior running back and defensive back who is fielding offers from a number of colleges and universities — many of them Big Sky Conference schools.

In fact, the University of Idaho is the latest school to offer Altahir a scholarship this past week.

He rushed for 1,406 yards last season, and he scored 20 touchdowns.

• Cameron Breier, a linebacker and running back for Chiawana who has already verbally committed to the Air Force Academy.

Breier also is an outstanding 400-meter runner in track, and he’s used that speed to get to ball carriers first since his sophomore year.

• Royal quarterback Caleb Christensen, who led the Knights to the 1A state football championship last fall. The senior is getting a lot of interest from colleges.

• Royal wide receiver and defensive back Cooper Christensen, another senior who dominated on the field last season for the Knights.

Cooper scored 22 touchdowns last season, and as a DB, he had 9 interceptions.

• Woodley Downard, a senior wide receiver at Kamiakin. Downard has exceptional speed, and can also be a disruptive force on defense too.

He already has verbally committed to Eastern Washington University.

• Ben Fewel, the Richland High senior wide receiver who led the Mid-Columbia Conference in receiving in 2019. He had 89 catches for 1,236 yards, scoring 13 touchdowns. He has verbally committed to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

• Prosser senior Haden Hicks, who was hurt as the team’s quarterback in 2019 and at that time decided to quit playing football.

But Hicks, who stands 6-foot-6 inches tall and is a state high jump champion, decided to come back out for his final season as a wide receiver for the Mustangs.

While being a good football player, Hicks is an even better basketball player, and that’s probably where his future lies.

• Pasco High senior Des Licon, who was a first-team, All-MCC selection in 2019 at three positions – wide receiver, defensive back and kick returner. His speed and open-field awareness are hard to match.

Licon has received interest from EWU.

• Kennewick running back and linebacker Myles Mayovsky, just a junior.

Mayovsky was a workhouse in the backfield last season for the Lions, who advanced all the way to the Class 3A state semifinals.

He’s also a talented linebacker who can hit hard.

• Wide receiver Kobe Young of Chiawana, whose 6-6 height and speed make him hard to defend.

Young had foot problems last season, which forced him to miss a part of the Riverhawks football season and almost all of the boys basketball season.

While he’ll get interest from colleges for football, he’s already had college basketball offers from Idaho State and UC San Diego.

• JP Zamora, the junior quarterback for Chiawana who helped lead the Riverhawks to the playoffs last season.

Among high school pundits around the state, Zamora already is considered the top QB in the state for the Class of 2022. The University of Utah has already offered him a scholarship.

Notes

• This should come as no surprise, but the officials of the District 8 conferences — Mid-Columbia Conference and Greater Spokane League — have decided that there will be no WIAA Sports Season 1 sports to be held this fall.

Last week, the WIAA allowed cross country and slowpitch softball to be held as an alternate season of prep sports in the fall, with the championships for those sports to be held in the spring.

That went along with alternate seasons of golf and tennis for the fall, which a number of west-side schools follow because of better weather in the fall.

But both the GSL and MCC officials decided that cross country and slowpitch softball will be held March 7 to May 2.

• Columbia Basin College baseball third baseman Isaac Chamberlain, a redshirt freshman from La Grande, Ore., has signed a letter-of-intent to play at Eastern Oregon University.

EOU’s first season since baseball returned from a 15-year absence will be next spring, and Chamberlain is from the town that EOU is in.

• Hanford High School has hired Jack Klose Jr., to become its new head coach in soccer. Klose will be pulling double duty, running both the boys program and the girls program.

• It’s always nice to see a former Tri-City Dust Devils player make a major-league roster — or NFL roster in the case of the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson.

As Dust Devils fans, we can always say we knew that player when he played here in town.

But let’s not forget the coaches, who work just as hard to make it up that ladder as the players do.

Such is the case of Ben Fritz, who managed the Dust Devils in the 2016 and 2017 seasons, leading those teams to a 74-78 record. Remember: in affiliated ball, developing a player can be more important than the wins and losses, although the wins are nice.

After Tri-Cities, Fritz served as the San Diego Padres’ rehabilitation coordinator in Arizona for 2018-19.

This year, Fritz got his big promotion. He’s the Padres’ bullpen coach for the 2020 season.

• The Open Mat wrestling website, as reported by GranbyRoller Twitter, has come out with its national rankings for individual girls high school wrestling.

The organization has ranked the top 150 girls in the nation from the Class of 2021, and a number of Mid-Columbia athletes are among those ranked.

Hanford’s Taylor Wilson, at 101 pounds, is ranked 28th in the nation among all weight divisions.

Kennewick’s Alexia Asselin, at 170 pounds, is 62nd.

Others in order are Connell’s Rosa Saucedo Ramirez (191 pounds) at No. 91; Sunnyside’s Eliza Rodriguez (101 pounds) at No. 132; and Othello’s Iyazely Barraza (116 pounds) at No. 142.

The Open Mat also ranked the top 100 girls in the nation for the Class of 2022.

Kennewick twins Ayanna Asselin and Aubreyanna Asselin are on that list.

Ayanna, wrestling at 155 pounds, is 38th in the nation; Aubreyanna, at 143 pounds, ranked 86th.

• I left two ex-Tri-City Americans off of my list of those who are on NHL rosters that returned to play in the bubble: Dylan Coghlan is with the Vegas Golden Knights, and Eric Comrie is with the Winnipeg Jets.