The phrase “rebuilding year” might be an understatement for the defending 4A state championship Eastlake fastpitch team.
The good news: Eastside Catholic returns eight players from last year’s 14-8 district playoff squad.
The bad news: There were only 13 girls who tried out for this year’s team.
Success and the Issaquah fastpitch team are synonymous. Eight of the last 11 seasons, including the last three, the Eagles have advanced to the state tournament.
Success is nothing new to the Issaquah baseball program.
Since 2000, the Eagles have claimed three state championships and two third-place finishes.
Experience isn’t an issue for the Skyline baseball team this season.
The Spartans return 11 seniors to their lineup from a group that went 12-4 in the KingCo 3A last year and 16-7 overall.
High expectations soared over the heads of the Eastside Catholic baseball team last season. The Crusaders ran the table in the Metro League, going a perfect 16-0 in the regular season — before it all came crashing down.
The Eastlake baseball team has a new face at the helm for the 2009 season — sort of.
Only 8 minutes stood between the Issaquah girls and a fourth-place trophy on Saturday afternoon.
Fresh off coverage of the Eastlake/Bellarmine girls game, sports writer Kevin Endejan will be posting live updates of the Issaquah vs. Pasco girls game right here at 3:30 p.m.
Navigate back to this link at 3:30 and click the CoverItLive widget embedded below to start seeing updates from the game. If you’d like to leave a comment, feel free, though Kevin won’t be able to see your comments till later today.
Federal Way cruised past Issaquah with a 54-38 victory Thursday night. For play-by-play action from the game click on the Cover It Live logo below. Issaquah plays in a loser-out contest at 3:30 p.m., tomorrow against Pasco. Check back for more live coverage.
Eastlake received a cold greeting Wednesday morning during its first state playoff appearance in 12 years.
Issaquah trailed most of Wednesday night’s 4A state tournament opener, but battled back in the last five minutes to beat Jackson 58-55.
The Issaquah Reporter will provide live Twitter coverage of Eastlake and Issaquah from the 4A Girls State Basketball Championships at the Tacoma Dome, starting at 9 a.m., Wednesday.
It was occasionally bumpy. It wasn’t always pretty. But the Issaquah girls could care less — they got the job done on Friday.
The Eagles overcame 20 turnovers and 35 percent shooting to beat Eastlake 44-34 for the Sea-King 4A District championship at Juanita High School.
“When we play tough (defense) like that you might say it looks kind of ugly, but that’s the thing – the girls play hard and if it’s low scoring like that, it’s kind of been in our favor,” head coach Kathy Gibson said.
State tournament matchups and times for the 4A state tournament were set Sunday afternoon by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. The double-elimination tournament launches Wednesday at the Tacoma Dome.
For the second straight year, Eastside Catholic’s Ethan Hallowell nabbed state swimming championships in the 50 and 100 freestyles.
The chances were there, the shots just wouldn’t fall for Issaquah Tuesday night.
Alexa Smith, Erin Nicol and Heather Morris walked hand-in-hand back to the Issaquah bench Saturday night with smiles plastered on their faces.
Issaquah had a chance to seal a state berth Friday night, but a second-half slump led the Eagles to a 71-59 loss to Inglemoor.
Worn, tired, bruised and bloodied, AJ Hostak embraced Eastside Catholic head coach Dennis Reddinger Saturday afternoon on the Tacoma Dome floor.