sammamishrevuew21313

communitySAMMAMISH REVIEW February 13, 2013 l 7

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By Lillian O’Rorke

Hola, Hallo, Salam, Dia dhuit, An-nyung and Alo are all ways to say ‘hello,’ and as children made their way around the 34 differ-ent booths Feb. 8 at Creekside Elementary School’s cultural fair, they learned greetings from around the globe.

“I think it’s very well done and very well thought out. And, it’s very fun to be in,” said Anthony Berlongieri, who attends fourth grade at Creekside.

His own family can trace its roots back to many places, including Italy, Poland, Ireland, Scotland and Germany, but that night the 9-year-old was busy learning about his classmates’ heritage. He perused booth after booth, practicing saying ‘hello’ in the native tongue, sampling dif-ferent delicacies and collecting stickers for his passport.

This year’s theme for Creekside’s third annual cultural fair was “Explore the World.” Only, students and their families didn’t need to pack or stand in long customs lines. Instead, the children were given blank passports as they entered their school’s multipur-pose room, which was filled with a myriad of different food, music and textiles from around the world. As the students made their way from table to table, they earned stamps for their passports by saying ‘hello’ in various dia-lects.

“It’s really nice to see the kids speaking another language,” said Irma Villamil, who’s son is in fourth grade at Creekside. Villamil is originally from Mexico and has created a booth every year to represent her family’s customs

“For me, it’s really nice to

share everything,” she said. “I think it’s important too, to be proud of your culture. They are really proud of America, because they are American, but for us, for the moms and the fathers and the parents, we are really proud of everything.”

When Villamil first took part in the fair three years ago, hers was one of seven countries that were represented. The next year, 20 families set up booths, and this year the number of cultures represented expanded to 34, with new additions like Israel, Iran, Scotland, Croatia, South Africa and even Minnesota.

“People were really great to step up and want to come,” said Ghada Madkour, who moved to the United States from Egypt 12 years ago. Taking the helm this year, Madkour lead the PTSA–sponsored event and expanded

the event to include states. “I just wanted everyone to be here. It’s a cul-tural fair.”

The num-ber of booths wasn’t the only thing that

increased. Last year, the event handed out 150 passports. This year organizers ran out of the 200 passports that had been printed and said they could have easily used 100 more.

“The kids really like it. They like seeing their heritage cel-ebrated,” said Madkour. “There are so many people in this area that we live in, from everywhere. And, the kids get the chance to just be themselves for the day, and wear their costumes or their outfits and showcase their food. ...It’s just a chance for them to really be proud of whatever they are and where they’re from and let us know where it is.”

Leading up the event, differ-ent students with different cul-tural backgrounds would make

the morning’s announcements. Over the school’s intercom they’d say hello in their family’s native language, tell the students a fact – like that toilet paper was invented in China – and invite everyone to the cultural fair.

“Since students were making the announcements, I think their energy also gets other kids excited about it,” Robin Earl, Creekside’s principal said. “They learn from each other...that’s what I think our whole global community needs to do, learn from each other and sup-port each other.”

Earl explained that at Creekside the students are study-ing the seven habits of highly effective people and the cultural fair compliments it well.

“To me, learning about each other’s cultures and having more understanding – that’s kind of the same philosophy,” she said. “My favorite is just kneeling down next to a child and saying ‘teach me about your culture’ and hav-ing them share about their family life and their personal life.”

Creekside hosts international celebration of diversity

Jeffery Marshall on dean’s list

Jeffrey Marshall, of Sammamish, was named to the dean’s list at Loyola Marymount University for the fall 2012 semester. To qualify, students need a GPA of 3.5 or higher.

Samuel Olmstead on dean’s list

Samuel Olmstead, of Sammamish, was named to the dean’s list at Eastern

Oregon University. Students need a GPA of 3.5 or higher.

Gonzaga names president’s list

The following Sammamish residents were named to the president’s list at Gonzaga University. To qualify, students need-ed a GPA of 3.7 or higher.

Elizabeth Arnold, Michaela Bernardo, Jordan Brunner, Stephanie Clay, Jessica Daniels, Aspen Edwards, Chadwick Gray,

Kin Kang, Erin Pazaski and Laura Woodward.

Gonzaga names dean’s list

The following Sammamish residents were named to the dean’s list at Gonzaga University. To qualify, students need a GPA between 3.5 and 3.69.

Mercedes Bass, Brian Burgess, Devyn Butenko, Luke Koch, Katherine Olsen, Katherine Pullen, Ryan Wong and Annie Worman.

Photo by Lillian O’RorkeDuring the cultural fair at Creekside Elementary School, children put on different performances to showcase their heritage.

Photo by Lillian O’RorkeXiaomei Jin and her daughter Kelly Cai, left, and Kelly’s class-mates Jocelyn and Jocasta Xie were happy to spend the eve-ning Feb. 8 showing off their own culture while exploring that of the rest of the Creekside Elementary School community.

“I think it’s important too, to be proud of your

culture.”– Irma Villamil,

Parent –

EFR volunteer of the year

ContributedDeputy Chief Greg Tyrion presents Michele Julum with a plaque recognizing her as vol-unteer of the year for Eastside Fire & Rescue.She volunteers out of Pine Lake station No. 81, and has been a vol-unteer since 2009. Last year, she responded to 246 emergency calls, three times the number of the average volunteer.

sports8 l February 13, 2013 SAMMAMISH REVIEW

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By Lillian O’Rorke

The Eastlake girls basketball team knocked Bothell out of the post season and edged one game closer to the state tournament Feb. 9 by sweeping the Bothell Cougars 64-43.

Both teams lost the first round of the KingCo 4A tourna-ment Feb. 5, when Eastlake fell 46-37 to Newport and Skyline beat Bothell 76-44. When they met on the court Feb. 9, one of them would be playing its last game of the season.

“You have to flip your men-tality. You are no longer play-ing with a cushion,” said the Eastlake’s Wolves’ assistant coach Megan Reinhart. “They came ready to play. In a loser-out game both teams are going to come hard and play with a lot of heart, and our girls showed up tonight. And they did the best of their abilities, so it was good to see.”

Eastlake won the tip off, which junior post Marijke Vanderschaaf quickly converted to a 2-point bucket. The Wolves kept the momentum going, scor-ing two times for every Cougar basket. Bothell battled back and managed several steals but was unable to cash most of them in for points. By the end of the first quarter, Eastlake was off to a 20-13 lead, in part thanks to a 3-pointer each from junior Elizabeth Tracy and senior Rachel Ainslie.

“It felt good. Threes are kind of my specialty a little bit, so when I start to hit them, then I get more comfortable, and I settle down a little,” said Ainslie. “It just brought me to where I need to be.”

The Wolves carried their lead through the second quarter, capitalizing on offensive and defensive rebounds to outscore the Cougars 14-8. But, Bothell didn’t go down without a fight. Emerging from halftime, the Cougars were the first to put two on the board. They were about to do it again after quickly stealing the ball from the Eastlake offense when Vanderschaaf stole the ball back. Down on the other end of the court, she rebounded a missed attempt by teammate Maggie Douglas and finished the play with two points for the Wolves. The two teams continued to go

back and forth, taking battles for control of the ball all the way to the floor. But Eastlake prevailed and ended the third quarter with a 20-point lead at 50-30.

“You have to start the half like it’s zero-zero and like it’s a new game, because you can lose

the lead just like that,” said sophomore guard Ellie Woerner, whose unwill-ingness to let go of the ball

won possession for Eastlake sev-eral times. “We just came in like it was a new half and got a win that half too.”

The Wolves carried their lead all the way to the end, never let-ting Bothell come closer than 20 points. Helping secure the victo-ry was freshman Sarah Priestly, who played her first varsity game that night and scored four points for Eastlake.

“She’s the first freshman to

ever score in a varsity game, let alone a playoff game,” said Reinhart. “It was just great to see her be fearless and excel… it was as if she has been playing with us all year.”

Eastlake finished the regu-lar season second in the Crest league with a 10-4 record. After the win over Bothell, the Wolves were set to faceoff Feb. 12 against the Crown league’s No. 2 seed, Issaquah. The winner of that game will play for third place in the KingCo conference Feb. 14. But even claiming third doesn’t buy the team an auto-matic ticket to state. The KingCo third place finisher and the Wesco third place finisher will battle it Feb. 19 for a place at the state tournament.

“We keep progressively get-ting better, and we all have ener-gy more and more each game,” said Vanderschaaf. “So, I think that if we carry that over to Tuesday, then we can beat them (Issaquah) and keep going.”

Photo by Lillian O’RorkeEastlake junior Marijke Vanderschaaf springs above Bothell’s defense to shoot the ball during the Feb. 9 KingCo 4A playoff game.

Eastlake tramples Bothell 64-43 in KingCo playoff

“We keep progressively getting better.”

– Marijke Vanderschaaf, Post –

By Lillian O’Rorke

The postseason started with a bang for the Skyline girls basket-ball team Feb. 6 when it blasted Bothell 76-44 in the first round of the KingCo 4A Championships.

Seeded No. 1 in the Crown division, the Skyline Spartans came out with a strong defense. Senior guards Rachel Shim and Lacey Nicholson were glued to two of the Bothell Cougars top scorers, Randi Dixon and Erin Burns, and together with their teammates, held the Cougars’ offense to only two points during the first quarter.

“My mentality going into every game is pretty much put-ting it all into defense, and then once I put it all into defense, my offense eventually comes,” said Shim. “We’re a very defensive-minded team. We try to come out with that much aggressiveness every game.”

But the Spartans eagerness to force a turnover or get a steal

also put them into foul trouble, which allowed Bothell to score six free throw points in the first quarter.

“We’ve done that in the past where we get too amped up for games, and we’re trying to get a steal out of every play,” said Skyline’s coach Greg Bruns. “You don’t have to pressure so much that you’re reaching and fouling and getting us in trouble. The main thing is to make it difficult for them.”

Skyline’s eager defense con-tinued to force several turnovers in the second quarter, includ-ing a steal by sophomore Stella Mazzaferro.

With four minutes left in the first half, Mezzaferro seized the ball and ran half the court before netting two to give Skyline a solid 10-point lead at 25-15.

The Spartans were ahead 34-21 when they returned after

Skyline trumps Ballard 76-44 in first postseason playoff

Photo by Lillian O’RorkeSkyline junior Shelby Kassuba shoots to make a third-quarter basket against Bothell Feb. 6.

See BASKETBALL, Page 9