SPORTS

Lady B’s end v-ball season
Blaine’s Lady B’s fell 15-10, 15-0 to Granite Falls and 15-4, 15-10 to a very solid Nooksack Valley team in North Cascades Conference District volleyball playoffs at Sultan on November 3.
Despite being eliminated, the Lady B’s completed their most successful season in three years. Coach Sheri Schroeder’s player-by-player analysis of the team was a fitting summary of the progress the team has made:
Becky Riddle (hitter) – senior, phenomenal leader, all-round player, served 90 percent for the season, consistent defensive player and strong hitter.
Jess Freeman (setter) – calm, poised sophomore, fine passing ability to setter, consistent player game after game.
Alisa Burk (hitter) – sophomore, great server, intuitive defensive player, remarkably able to go where she needs to go on floor.
Jess Summers (hitter) – 6-1 sophomore, exceptional at kills, great blocker, the team’s Big Unit.
Amanda Stull (hitter) – sophomore, consistent blocker, good defensive player.
Amber Rucker (setter) – sophomore, great setter and blocker.
Kristina Beljean (hitter) – junior, good server and fine defensive player.
Jen Kramer (setter) – confident sophomore, aggressive player and passer, not easily intimidated.
Carly Hubbard (setter) – sophomore, solid passer and good setter.

Neil's Notes
Jorgensen Second
Blaine’s Chris Jorgensen shot a 75 to finished second to Joel McNeely’s 74 in the 8th annual Ball Buster tourney at Shuksan Golf Club on October 28.
Lemieux Scores Ace
Andre Lemieux scored a hole-in-one on the par 3 177-yard 12th hole with a 5 iron on November 3. .Back to Top

Grace Coulter 5th in state cross country
Blaine junior Grace Coulter, who was second at State in 1999 and again in 2000, ran a 19:31 5K (3.1 miles) to finish fifth in the 2A girls’ State cross country championships at Sun Willows Golf Course at Pasco on November 3.
Borderite senior Alden Walcon, who had been cruising across various 5K courses in times a few ticks above 17 minutes and piling up a string of second-place finishes, ran a 17:54 to come 78th.
Coulter, going from two seconds to a fifth place finish at state, Walcon’s 5K time suddenly extending into some sort of Einsteinian time dilation of the negative kind – not the great victories and heroic antics wanted for sportswriters’ deadlines, editors’ headlines and radio announcers’ saidlines.
But the case of Coulter and Walcon is one of those instances when eight-second type bites don’t tell the tale. Both Coulter’s and Walcon’s performances were excellent efforts.
Blaine coach Carey Bacon noted that “since the end of September, Coulter has been fighting a deep respiratory infection and is still recovering.”
He estimated that Coulter did less than half the normal work load she would have if she hadn’t been ill. Fifth in 19:31 put Grace on the medals platform for a third straight year and qualified her for the Washington vs. Oregon Border Clash at Nike World HQs in Beverton, Oregon, on November 10.
“Walcon,” Bacon explained, “came down with a bad cold or flu on Friday and following the race was on his back the remainder of the day.”
Even finishing a 5K run under such conditions is a feat analogous to enduring a triple root canal confrontation without anaesthetic.
Walcon will join Coulter at the Foot Locker West Regional Cross Country Championships in December when the finest CC striders in the western United States compete. Coulter and Walcon will be fund raising to get the money needed to attend.

Bs top Sultan in football finale
With Matt Timothy and Zeth Simpson back in tandem grinding ground into multiples of yards (214 for Timothy, 100 for Simpson), Blaine stopped Sultan 26-8 on November 2 in Turk town in the Borderites 2001 North Cascades Conference football finale.
The win salvaged an injury-influenced season from being a losing one as Blaine finished with a 4-4 NCC and 5-4 overall record.
Timothy went on touchdowns runs of 68, 13 and four yards, while Simpson combined with freshman quarterback Bryan Galbraith to score the Borderites final TD on 10-yard pass play. Josh Brandenburger got Blaine’s only PAT success, catching a pass for two points.
Simpson, out with a back injury for the Lynden Christian game, finished his senior season with an admirable record – 1,064 yards in 144 carries for a 7.4 rushing average and 18 touchdowns. Timothy, sidelined for several games and hampered in others by hip problems, put together an enviable season – 659 yards in 72 tries, a 9.2 rushing average and eight TDs.
Combine those totals and you’ve got 1,723 yards in 216 rushes, which translates into a couple of Borderites coming out of the backfield with 7.98 yards per carry credentials. It doesn’t even take 7.98 amps of cortical cellular output (translation: IQ greater than your hat size) to realize how different a season it would have been if short-bench Blaine’s dynamic duo had stayed healthy.
The Borderites 2001 season followed the NCC’s North beats South theme. Blaine’s four losses were to fellow Northern schools – Lynden Christian, Meridian, Mt. Baker and Nooksack Valley – by a combined score of 121-12. The Borderites’ four wins were over the NCC’s south sides – Granite Falls, Lakewood, South Whidbey, Sultan – by a combined tally of 144-35. Combining all this into a year’s NCC total for-against record and Blaine’s 4-4 win-loss record is paralleled by a 156 points for-156 points against. Mathematically interesting, whether P.M. (probably meaningless) or A.M (absolutely meaningless).
The effort exerted in establishing the record was very meaningful, however. It was a tribute to the team’s character and the Jim Rasar-led coaching staff that instilled that character.

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