Due to the heavy winter storm that blanketed Whatcom County with snow, forcing three days of school closures, multiple Blaine High School sports events were either canceled or rescheduled last week.
Girls basketball were unable to host Burlington-Edison on Friday, January 19, and the game has been rescheduled for Friday, January 26 at 7 p.m. at the Blaine gymnasium. The rescheduling means the girls team will play back-to-back games, facing Anacortes at home on Saturday, January 27 at 7:15 p.m.
Boys basketball was set to travel to play Burlington-Edison on Friday, January 19, but that game has been rescheduled to Friday, January 26. As with the girls team, the boys basketball squad will play back-to-back games when they travel to Anacortes on Saturday, January 27, starting at 5 p.m.
The girls bowling match against Meridian, scheduled for Friday, January 19, was canceled.
Boys Wrestling
In front of a packed house in their home gym, the Blaine boys wrestling team put up a great effort against a strong Ferndale team in the Northwest Conference (NWC) Championships on January 23.
The Borderites were unable to defeat the visiting Golden Eagles, losing 44-31 and were eliminated from the NWC Championship. But the focus that night wasn’t the scoreboard, it was instead on a group of eleven senior wrestlers celebrating their final meet under the home lights.
Samuel Baldwin, Christian Bullard, Noah Chilson, Cal Fitzgerald, Victor Gervol, Blake Goltz, Jonathan Morris, Alejandro Moser-Hernandez, Kale Pai, Jackson Veals and Max Wiederspohn are all set to graduate after great wrestling careers with Blaine.
Head coach Tom Hinz thinks of this cohort as the first full class to come out of Covid restrictions and restart the Blaine wrestling program.
“It’s just a great group of kids,” Hinz said. “This is kind of the bunch that came through after Covid and all that stuff. They’re just a bunch of studs, and they’re all good leaders in our room. It’s just really fun to watch these guys wrestle.”
While the home meets are all over for the season, the wrestling schedule continues on. The Borderites will travel to Vashon Island on February 10 for the state qualifying tournament.
Results from qualifying tournaments from around the state will be calculated, and seeding for the state tournament will be announced on Seeding Sunday, February 11.
Anyone from the team who qualifies for the state tournament will travel to the Tacoma Dome for the Mat Classic XXXV, the two-day tournament will crown state champions on Friday, February 16 and Saturday, February 17.
Watch for heavyweight Blaine wrestler Victor Gervol to make a run at state this year. The senior multi-sport letterman and Gut Check winner is racking up high expectations, backed up by head coach Tom Hinz.
“Victor [Gervol]’s beaten two state champions and he’s knocked off a lot of good kids,” Hinz said. “He won at Gut Check, which is the first time we’ve ever had a person win Gut Check, and last week he just beat a 4A state champion. So that stuff’s fun.”
Boys Basketball
After the snow forced a game against Burlington-Edison to be rescheduled for Friday, January 26, the Borderites played against Mount Vernon on January 22 after a week of no games.
In front of a home crowd at the Blaine gym, the Borderites couldn’t get their shots to fall to start the game, while a hot-shooting Mount Vernon (13-2, 9-1 NWC) team just couldn’t seem to miss.
The Borderites fell to a 22-9 deficit to end the first quarter, and just couldn’t mount a comeback, losing 78-53 and dropping to 4-12 with a 2-9 conference record.
Fortunately for the Borderites, they still have a shooter’s chance once the 1A district tournament begins on Monday, February 5.
The Borderites currently hold fourth place in the 1A NWC standings. If the season ended today, Blaine would host a playoff game, playing fifth place Mount Baker (3-14, 1-11) in a play-in game, with the winner going on to play likely first-seed Lynden Christian (15-1, 9-1) on February 7.
Girls Wrestling
The Borderites had a great day at the Lady Hawk Invitational at Mountlake Terrace on January 20.
Team captains Lucy Dahl and Analicea Ordonez placed first in their respective weight classes, with four other wrestlers placing 6th and above.
“All in all, a great day wrestling,” coach Damon Higgins told The Northern Light.
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