Tri-City Americans fans will have to sit out season — at least in person

The Tri-City Americans will be back in action next month.

The Western Hockey League announced last week that the U.S. Division teams can begin playing a shortened season starting March 19.

Each of the U.S. Division teams — the Everett Silvertips, Portland Winterhawks, Seattle Thunderbirds, Spokane Chiefs and the Tri-City Americans — are scheduled to play 24 games.

The schedule will be released at a later date, but it’s been made clear teams will not be able to have fans attend games because of the COVID pandemic.

However, the Americans have struck a deal with KNDU/SWX TV stations to broadcast all 12 of Tri-City’s home games.

Long time Ams radio man Craig West will work with KNDU’s Jamie Council on the TV games.

NewsTalk 870 KFLD will broadcast all Ams games.

Hydroplanes

Not long after announcing last week that Strong Racing had purchased a boat and its equipment from the Ellstrom family, the team announce the driver of the boat for the 2021 season: J. Michael Kelly.

Team owner Darrell Strong hadn’t plan to make any driver announcement for at least a couple of weeks. But he decided just two days after the announcement of purchasing the Ellstrom equipment to announce Kelly’s signing.

Strong said he never planned on going after Kelly at all, but a couple of things happened.

First, Kelly’s wife, Angela, suffered an aneurysm in the Phoenix area back in November when the family was visiting to watch their boys race boats.

Angela was only recently released from the hospital and is back home in the Seattle area working on her recovery.

But during her hospital stay, Strong and his wife Vanessa reached out to offer Kelly and his sons a place to stay at the Strong’s Scottsdale home.

“We would have offered our house to him no matter what,” Strong said. “He stayed at our house off and on. But he spent a lot of time down here, and we’ve become pretty good friends.”

Strong’s other driver, Corey Peabody, will drive the U-9 boat which was purchased last fall from Mike and Lori Jones.

It was Peabody, said Strong, who suggested he try to sign Kelly.

“He and Corey have been best friends since kindergarten,” Strong said. “Mike agreed, but I wasn’t going to announce it until he had talked to (Kelly’s previous boss) Rob Graham.”

Graham owns both Graham Trucking hulls and is now out both of his drivers — Kelly and Peabody. So he’ll be looking for some new drivers.

Meanwhile, Strong — in the span of a few months — has obtained two very fast boats, an established unlimited driver, and an up-and-coming driver ready for the 2021 H1 Unlimited season.

“I think I’m done spending money for a while,” Strong said. “Although we still have to get a few more gearboxes. But I do feel like we have two of the three fastest boats in the field.”

Both boats are in the same shop in Auburn, and Strong is somewhere he never thought he’d be a year ago. He had never really planned to run two boats in his first season as an owner.

But the Ellstrom boat and equipment sitting dry docked just didn’t make sense.

“It’s good for the sport,” he said. “For us, I think it works out better for the appearance money. And you don’t have to have two full crews. At different times in the sport, these were the No. 1 boats.”

Prep cross country

Mid-Columbia Conference boys and girls cross country season have tentative dates: Feb. 13 at Leslie Groves Park in Richland; Feb. 20 at Mill Creek in Walla Walla; Feb. 27 at Carmichael Middle School in Richland, where the event will be called the Richland Invite; March 6 at the Big Cross facility in Pasco; March 13 at Lawrence Scott Park.

A culminating event is tentatively scheduled for March 20 at Sandstone Middle School in Hermiston. But no one is completely sure yet whether Hermiston will be allowed to compete by the health departments of both Washington and Oregon.

If not, that location will be changed.

In the culminating event, the MCC’s Class 4A schools — Chiawana, Hanford, Kamiakin, Pasco and Richland will compete against each other.

The other 3A schools – Kennewick, Southridge and Walla Walla — will do the same.

Boys basketball

Scorebook Live Washington lists Chiawana senior Kobe Young at No. 12 in the organization’s Boys Basketball Recruiting Rankings.

Young has two NCAA D-1 basketball offers —from Idaho State and UC San Diego — but also has drawn interest for his talents as a wide receiver for the football team.

Young has not made a decision yet on a school choice.

College football

There was actual small college football Saturday, as the University of Puget Sound held off Pacific Lutheran 28-20 in a Northwest Conference game.

Prosser High grad Kord Tuttle, a sophomore at PLU, started at linebacker for the Lutes. Tuttle led the PLU defensive unit with a team-best 11 tackles (8 solo and 3 assists), and he had 2.5 tackles for loss, including a quarterback sack.

Tuttle also intercepted a pass and returned it 14 yards.

Prep football

Scorebook Live Washington came out with some state preseason rankings last week in anticipation that we might get some high school football this month

Among the highlights: Camas is ranked atop the Class 4A rankings, with Kamiakin sitting in ninth; While O’Dea will open as No. 1 in Class 3A, Kennewick is ranked seventh; Tumwater, which went 14-0 in 2019 to win the state 2A title, opens at No. 1 again while Prosser is No. 4; Royal, the defending state 1A champion, returns as preseason No. 1 while neighborhood rival Connell starts at No. 7; Napavine is the top 2B team, while Odessa is ranked No. 1 in 1B, and Richland’s Liberty Christian (which drops down from 2B) is No. 5 in the 1B ranks.

Signing

Columbia Basin College men’s soccer picked up another local player for the 2021-22 school year, as Chiawana senior forward Steve Ndayishimiye has signed with the Hawks.