You can’t miss it. The big yellow sign held up at every Overlake boys’ basketball game that says “No. 24 Danny Poplawski for MVP.”
The hot-shooting senior forward gave the home crowd plenty of reasons to cheer Tuesday night as he scored 23 points, including five straight 3-pointers, to lead the Owls past Emerald City League rival Cedar Park Christian School, 54-50.
No matter how hard he tried, The Overlake School’s Athletic Director John Wiley just couldn’t believe it.
A woman claiming to be Sheryl Swoopes, a three-time MVP of the Women’s National Basketball Association, had responded to his advertisement in early November in the hopes of getting a job as a middle-school girls basketball coach at a small private school high in the Redmond hills. Passing it off as perhaps a practical joke, it wasn’t until Wiley met Swoopes in person the next day that he realized the opportunity his young athletes could have.
For the first three quarters, Friday night’s 4A Kingco boys’ basketball matchup between the visiting Garfield Bulldogs and the Redmond Mustangs at Reiger Gymnasium was like any other heated league rivalry.
For the first three quarters, Friday night’s 4A Kingco boys’ basketball matchup between the visiting Garfield Bulldogs and the Redmond Mustangs at Reiger Gymnasium was like any other heated league rivalry.
The two schools’ student sections were trading derisive cheers and chants back and forth throughout, while the young athletes on the court were playing with the purpose and intensity of the playoffs.
And in the blink of an eye, everything went downhill.
Her team hadn’t lost a game in nearly one month. But Sara Wilcox, Overlake’s first-year head girls’ coach, knew they were in for a battle against Bellevue Christian, the squad that handed the Owls their most recent defeat back on Jan. 13.
Unfortunately, the Vikings arrived for combat with far superior weapons and armor, handily defeating the Owls 66-36 in their 1A Emerald City League matchup on Tuesday night in Bellevue and snapping Overlake’s eight-game winning streak.
The Bear Creek School’s head basketball coach Scott Moe knows he has kids who can shoot the basketball.
On Friday during his team’s Sea-Tac 2B league matchup against Seattle Lutheran, he called for the three-point shot early and often, as the Grizzlies used the long ball and stellar defense to pull out a 44-33 victory over the Saints.
Offensively, the Redmond Mustangs’ boys basketball team did not play the first three quarters of Tuesday night’s home 4A Kingco matchup against the Roosevelt Roughriders like a team riding a six-game winning streak.
But when the whistle sounded to begin the fourth quarter, a revived Mustang team stepped onto the court at Reiger gymnasium, setting up a wild and frantic finish.
In the end, Redmond could not bounce back from their sluggish start and the Roughriders converted clutch free throws down the stretch to seal a 54-51 win.
The Overlake girls basketball team went on the road and continued their winning ways against a shorthanded Forest Ridge School in 1A Emerald City contest Friday night, claiming their fourth straight victory with a 46-24 blowout of the Ravens.
The Redmond girls’ basketball team proved to be unwelcome guests at Lake Washington High School Wednesday night as the Mustangs handled the Kangaroos, 62-53 in a 4A Kingco contest.
The Redmond wrestling squad showed strength and purpose, handling Newport with ease, 51-24, in a 4A Kingco Conference win last Thursday at Redmond High.
Redmond co-captain Nolan Thomas, who wrestled at 135 pounds, and heavyweight Esteban Herrera each recorded impressive pins in the win. Teammate Sean Holt, wrestling at 140 pounds, also earned a decisive first-round pin in 1 minute, 34 seconds.
Overlake boys’ basketball player Trent Halverson, a junior forward and the team’s second-leading scorer, will miss 4-6 weeks with a broken tailbone after he went up hard for a rebound and fell awkwardly on his back during Tuesday’s 68-54 loss to Bellevue Christian.
The Bellevue Christian Vikings entered Tuesday’s boys basketball game against Overlake as the team to beat in the 1A Emerald City League. The Vikings came to The Overlake School with only one league blemish in their five seasons of playing in the conference.
Until the fourth quarter, the Owls had an excellent chance to pull off the upset. But the Vikings’ amped-up defense and clutch shooting late in the game sealed the 68-54 victory.
In what has been a recurring theme this season, the Bear Creek girls’ basketball team lost another close game Tuesday night, wavering down the stretch while Rainier Christian came through with clutch shots as the visiting Mustangs pulled out a 38-33 Sea-Tac 2B league win.
For all of his life, first-year Bear Creek girls’ basketball coach Alan Dickson has proven to be a fighter off the court as well as on it.
While attending Mishawaka High School in Indiana at age 16, he was diagnosed with acute ulcerative colitis, which caused internal bleeding in the lower digestive tract.
If your children are itching to try something new besides baseball or soccer, one of the city’s newest non-profit sports organizations may be just what they are looking for.
Redmond Lacrosse Club (RLC) was formed just last year when the only youth lacrosse organization on the Eastside since the 1980s split and formed a Northshore division, fueling the need for local kids to get back onto the field.
The temperature at tipoff for Tuesday night’s 4A Kingco matchup between the visiting Inglemoor boys basketball team and the Redmond Mustangs was a bone-chilling 23 degrees.
Unfortunately for the home squad, the Mustangs’ shooting efficiency went into a deep freeze as they fell to the Vikings, 56-38.
The Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association Panthers 16-and-under team was recently crowned state champion of the Dairy Farmers of Washington President’s Cup, which took place last Saturday at Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila.
Playing in their first 4A Kingco contest of the season in front of a raucous home crowd, the Redmond Mustangs lost a heartbreaker to the Newport Knights, 45-44, in a thrilling Crest Division showdown Friday night.
The Bear Creek boys basketball team survived a big-time scare by Seattle Academy Tuesday night.
The Grizzlies fended off a furious fourth-quarter comeback by the Cardinals and pulled out a 52-48 nonleague victory at home.
Bear Creek led 37-22 after three quarters, but the Cardinals stormed back before clutch free-throw shooting late in the game enabled the Grizzlies to sneak away with the win.
Following the 2006-07 season, Redmond High School was in grave danger of losing its gymnastics program.
Having gone through its sixth coach since 1999, Athletic Director John Appelgate sent a desperate plea to a man who formerly coached his kids at Eastside Gymnastics Academy in Woodinville.