Sammamishreview10232013

community8 l October 23, 2013 SAMMAMISH REVIEW

8

Skyline marches on

Skyline High School cheer squad students wave their bright pom poms in the afternoon sun-light Oct. 28 as they lead the marching band, student royalty and class floats in the annual Homecoming Parade.

Photos by Greg Farrar

Derek Riegel, Skyline High School junior, leads his fellow choir members Oct. 18 in the annual Spartan homecoming parade.

Vocal Jazz students (at right) walk beside a van covered

with notes, smiley faces and sporting the motto ‘Sing your

heart out’ on the bumper.

Test Your Might is the impromptu slogan for the both the junior class float and the Skyline students walking alongside during the parade on 228th Avenue Southeast.

Skyline High School nominees for homecoming court junior class prince (below, from left) Andrew Cespedes, Tobie Siu and Eddie Smintina, wave at spectators along the route on 228th Avenue Southeast from Discovery Elementary to Skyline High School.

Tim Brewer, a King County Sheriff’s deputy, keeps the students in the procession safe as he serves as rear guard for the home-coming parade.

By Neil Pierson

The Skyline High School girls cross country team is looking to return to the Class 4A state championships, and recent results indicate the Spartans’ goal is within reach.

At the Oct. 12 Hole in the Wall Invitational in Arlington – a race that featured some of the better teams and athletes from across the state – Skyline placed sixth overall and trailed only Bellarmine Prep and Roosevelt among the 4A teams in atten-dance.

The Spartans stayed sharp in their return to the racecourse four days later. They scored 25 points, easily defeating Issaquah and Newport in an Oct. 16

KingCo Conference meet at Bellevue’s Kelsey Creek Park.

Sophomore Maizy Brewer has consistently been among Skyline’s top runners this season. Brewer placed third at Kelsey Creek Park in 20 minutes, 24 seconds, and said the Hole in the Wall event might have been the equivalent of a postseason race.

“That’s definitely a good race to gauge where you are in comparison,” Brewer said. “We thought it was a good race. It was hard. There were a lot of corners, so it was kind of slow, but we were really proud of ourselves as a team and how we stacked up.”

Multiple runners said the 3.1-mile Kelsey Creek course was a difficult one because it was run mostly on gravel trails. In their final conference dual, the Spartans placed seven run-ners inside the top-12, including Alex Daugherty (second, 20:23), McKenzie Deutsch (fifth, 20:44) and Caitlin McIlwain (sixth, 20:48).

Issaquah junior Ellie Clawson

won the girls race in 19:59.Skyline will need to stick

together to have postseason success. Brewer said senior Samantha Krahling has been injured; she hasn’t competed since Oct. 5 and was one of the team’s top athletes up until that point.

With the KingCo champion-ships taking place Oct. 24 at Lincoln Park in Seattle, the Spartans will try to maintain the pack mentality that has served them well thus far.

“I think our girls are doing a really good job of trying to push up with us, and I think we’ve definitely got a really good pack going for the varsity girls,” Brewer said.

The Skyline boys also won their final regular-season compe-tition, compiling 34 points. Like the girls squad, they had seven athletes inside the top-12.

Issaquah sophomore Kennan Schrag led from nearly start

By Neil Pierson

Two days after their offense took much of the game to find a rhythm, the Skyline Spartans girls soccer team was looking for a quick start.

Needing a victory over rival Eastlake to keep pace with first-place Issaquah, the Spartans scored twice before halftime and shut down a late rally from the Wolves for a 4-1 victory in KingCo Conference play Oct. 17 at Spartan Stadium.

Goals from Amanda Johnston in the 17th minute and Kelli Sullivan in the 30th minute secured Skyline’s fast start, some-thing the team was unable to do in an Oct. 15 contest at Garfield.

Against Garfield, the Spartans went to halftime in a scoreless tie, then needed two goals in the final four minutes for a 3-1 win.

Johnston, a junior forward, said it was encouraging that the Spartans were able to flip a switch and score when they had to, but it wasn’t a pattern they wanted to repeat against a hun-gry Eastlake side that’s still bat-tling for a playoff berth.

“That’s what we’ve been focusing on a lot, because we think we’re a second-half team,”

Johnston said. “We’re trying to improve that and just get on them first half, get on them first 10 minutes, and then close them out when we can.”

Eastlake showed it was a deter-mined, desperate team early in the match. The Wolves had long stretches of possession and a cou-ple decent scoring chances.

“The first 20 minutes were obviously very, very good, and we had some opportunities,” Eastlake head coach Chuck Krieble said. “I felt there were subsequent patches of three or four minutes throughout the rest of the game.”

But Eastlake’s strong start fizzled when Aleisha Gable found Sullivan in the penalty area. Sullivan was able to slip the ball past goalkeeper Natalie LaTurner to an open Johnston, who buried her shot high into the net for a 1-0 Skyline lead.

“That was a lot of (Sullivan’s) work,” Johnston said of the play. “Usually when I see that situa-tion, you know the ball’s going to get knocked out because nobody really knows where the ball is. And then I just saw it, and I stood there and anticipated it, and fin-ished it the best I could.”

Later in the first half,

LaTurner made a couple out-standing saves to maintain the one-goal difference, but she couldn’t pounce on the ball dur-ing a scramble in front of the net,

and Sullivan poked it past her.“Skyline’s been doing that for

years,” Krieble said. “They take advantage of any loose ball, and we talked about that.”

Skyline captain Brooke Holland had the highlight goal of the night. Two minutes into

SPORTS10 l October 23, 2013 SAMMAMISH REVIEW

10

Spartans best Wolves in key KingCo soccer match

Photo by Dale Garvey Skyline’s Amanda Johnston dribbles past Eastlake defender Melissa Radecke during first-half action on Oct. 17 in KingCo Conference girls soccer action. Johnston had two goals as Skyline won, 4-1.

Photo by Neil PiersonSkyline High senior runner Joey Nakao sprints down the final stretch of an Oct. 16 cross country race at Bellevue’s Kelsey Creek Park. Nakao finished fourth in 17 minutes, 25 seconds.

Skyline cross country teams sweep Issaquah, Newport

See SOCCER, Page 11

See COUNTRY, Page 11