With winter weather wreaking havoc across the Puget Sound region, high school sports teams are seeing their postseason plans run amok with some district tournaments (basketball) being shortened and other tourneys (wrestling regionals, swimming districts) being canceled outright, with state finals looming.
Here’s a quick recap of where Sequim athletes are competing.
Wrestling
Regional wrestling tournaments across the state have been canceled, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association announced on Feb. 8.
“To address these cancellations, the WIAA staff and event managers are developing a 32-entry WIAA Mat Classic tournament that will begin on Friday, Feb. 15.
Brackets are now up at www.wiaa.com.
Sequim sophomore Noah Eveland, who was scheduled to wrestle at regionals with the No. 3 sub-district seed at Belfair this past weekend, takes on Trevor Scantling of Eatonville in the 285-pound weight class opener at Mat Classic.
Fellow SHS sophomore Aleah Chen takes on Dasha Burnett of Yelm, ranked No. 12 in the state according to Washington Wrestling Report, in her bracket opener in the girls’ 145-pound weight division at Mat Classic. Chen had the sub-district’s No. 3 seed to regionals at Federal Way.
See wiaa.com/subcontent.aspx?SecID=1169 for bracket updates.
Basketball
With the West Central District basketball tourney already in progress prior to the winter storm cancellations, the tourney committee decided to move all scheduled games from Tuesday, Feb. 12 to Wednesday, Feb. 13, with teams playing in the consolation brackets likely playing back-to-back days to sort out the six teams advancing to regionals (see boys, girls basketball stories, this page).
Swimming
Organizers of the class 1A/2A West Central District Boys Swim and Dive Championships decided to cancel the tournament set for Feb. 8-9 in Renton after the host school (Hazen) closed during the winter storm.
Instead, state qualifiers and other top swimmers were advanced to the state 2A meet set for Feb. 15-16 in Federal Way. District seed times were taken into consideration when figuring out “wild cards” to state.
Sequim is sending all three relays — 200 medley, 200 free and 400 free — to the state meet.
SHS junior Jax Thaxton is the lone Wolf competing in individual events: he’s seeded 17th in the 50 yard freestyle with a 23.48 mark, and 22nd in the 100 backstroke with a 1:01.57 best.
Competing for the Wolves in relay events are Thaxton, Alex Berikoff, Deven Beihler, Zen Graham, Michael Mattern Hall, Kaleb Needoba and Liam Payne.
Sequim alternates include Blake Boardman, Jesse Bobst, Jordan Hurdlow, William Plasch and Myles Tadlock.
Sequim’s 200 medley relay is seeded 14th (1:51.07) while the 200 free relay is seeded 16th (1:39.70) and 400 free relay is 17th (3:43.42).
Gymnastics
The class 2A/3A Sub-District Gymnastics meet in Dupont set for Feb. 7 was canceled, with athletes — including those from the combined Port Angeles-Sequim-Crescent team — advancing to the 2A/3A West Central District 3 meet at Kent-Meridian High School on Feb. 15.
Sequim junior Lesea Pfeffer, sophomore Emma Sharp and freshmen Ellie Turner and Danica Pierson are competing in all four disciplines — bars, beam, floor and vault — at the district meet.
There they’ll be joined by Port Angeles teammates Anne Edwards, Lisi Hanson, Mei Ying Harper-Smith, Brooklynne Jacobs, Julienne Jacobs, Laura Lago, Aiesha LaTourette, Alyssa Peppers, Molly Scofield, and Crescent’s Aubrie Scott.
