2018 was a pretty impressive sports year in the Mid-Columbia.
State championships in various sports. A world championship in swimming. New sports teams. Current ones having great playoff runs.
The Mid-Columbia region had it all.
Here’s a look at the top Mid-Columbia sports news of the year:
1. Swim champs
Richland native Lisa Bratton had used up her college eligibility at Texas A&M, but had stayed on the College Station campus to train professionally with a group of teammates.
In early December, Bratton made the U.S. Swim team roster for the 2018 FINA World Short Course Championships, held in China. Bratton took the women’s 200 meter backstroke title.
It was Bratton’s first victory since turning professional after completing her college eligibility.
“I’m a little surprised I
won,” Bratton told the Herald during a FaceTime interview, “having not swam short courses much.”
Bratton finished the race in 2:00.71, just out-touching the wall over U.S. teammate Kathleen Baker, who won silver with a time of 2:00.79.
- In high school boys competition, Hanford’s Skylar Younkin took the 4A boys 100 butterfly state title in February.
2. State baseball titles
In May, the Mid-Columbia region showed the rest of the state where many of the top high school baseball teams in the state reside, as Richland, Southridge and Tri-Cities Prep nabbed state championship crowns.
Richland, with an 18-10 record, got hot at the right time, rolling through regionals and into the Final Four at Gesa Stadium in Pasco.
Led by head coach Grant Richardson, the Bombers beat Skyview 5-2 for the Class 4A title. It marked the Bombers’ second state title in a major sport during the school year.
Richland had won the 4A state football championship the previous December.
- Head coach Tim Sanders led his Southridge Suns back to the Class 3A Final Four for the third consecutive year. In 2016, the Suns placed third at state, while in 2017, they were second. But this time Southridge (23-4) handled Kelso with ease in the championship, winning the 3A title tilt by an 11-6 score.
- Jason Jarrett’s Tri-Cities Prep Jaguars rolled over Brewster 14-7 to take the 2B crown. It gave the Jags a sparkling 25-2 record and their first-ever 2B state championship in baseball.
3. Tri-City Americans
The Tri-City Americans had an interesting 2017-18 campaign, to say the least.
Plagued by numerous injuries over the course of their Western Hockey League regular season, the talented Americans never seemed at full strength until late in the season.
Yet they still compiled a 38-25-8-1 record to finish fourth in the U.S. Division standings.
And when the playoffs started, they were playing on all cylinders, sweeping Kelowna 4-0 in the first round of the playoffs. Then they swept Victoria 4-0 in the Western Conference semifinals.
Playing Everett in the Western Conference finals, Tri-City lost to the Silvertips 4-2. Still, it was a great postseason run. Defenseman Juuso Valimaki was named a second-team WHL all-star to boot.
But after the season, Ams head coach Mike Williamson decided to step down. Tri-City hired former Edmonton Oilers standout Kelly Buchberger as head coach.
Valimaki ended up making the Calgary Flames’ NHL roster to start the 2018-19 campaign, as did forward Michael Rasmussen with the Detroit Red Wings.
As the calendar year ended, the Americans were 19-13-1-1 for the 2018-19 season, good enough for fourth place in the U.S. Division.
4. Basketball
No high school basketball team was a bigger draw last winter than the Richland Bombers boys.
Led by 7-foot-4 Riley Sorn, the Bombers boasted a talented lineup that could put up points and stop other teams from scoring.
Richland won the Mid-Columbia Conference title, but faltered when the Bombers faced Gonzaga Prep in the Class 4A state semifinals in the Tacoma Dome, losing 53-50.
Perhaps disappointed with the loss, Richland failed to bounce back in the third-place game, losing to Spokane’s Lewis & Clark to finish fifth.
- The Kamiakin girls basketball team, led by Butler University-bound Oumou Toure, finished fourth in the state 3A tournament in Tacoma — losing a first-round game to Garfield before beating Lincoln of Tacoma and Seattle Prep for the placing.
- The Sunnyside Christian boys defeated Almira-Coulee-Hartline 69-61 to win the State 1B boys championship, while the SSC girls team beat Neah Bay to finish third in their tournament.
- Led by Cierra Jo McKeown, the Walla Walla Community College women’s basketball team defeated Umpqua for the NWAC basketball title in March. It marked the third NWAC women’s title for the Warriors in the past 18 years, all three of the teams being coached by Bobbi Hazeltine.
5. Football
The 2018 high school football season was marked by the addition of Hermiston to the Mid-Columbia Conference.
The Oregon Scholastic Activities Association, as well as the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, granted Hermiston’s request to join its friends north of the border because had Hermiston stayed in Oregon, a pending reclassification would have meant a new league for the Bulldogs with the shortest road trip being at least 180 miles — one way.
That would have meant a lot of missed class time for the school’s athletes. The defending Class 5A state champions from Oregon represented well in MCC football, with a 6-4 record.
However, it wasn’t enough as Kennewick and Kamiakin snared the MCC’s two Class 3A berths. But Hermiston’s addition to the MCC improved the overall quality in a league that had as many as six of its nine teams still vying for the conference title with two games left in the schedule.
Chiawana ended up winning the MCC title, but lost its first-round state playoff game to Bothell, 40-14.
The WIAA tried something new this season, creating seeding committees for each classification that would rank the teams from 1 to 16, setting the pairings.
- Class 1A Royal, winners of three consecutive state titles, finally lost to eventual state champion Colville, by a 31-28 score, in the semifinals. That snapped a 53-game win streak — the longest in the nation at the time.
- Meanwhile, Dan Whitsett’s Tri-Cities Prep team made it to the state 2B quarterfinals before losing to Toledo.
- By the end of the year, an Everett man named Kinshasa Martin was looking to put a new indoor football team, called the Tri-Cities Fire, into the Toyota Center in a new league called the American West Football Conference. A deal has yet to be signed with the Toyota Center, but Martin was positive it would happen after the new year. The AWFC has five teams: the Fire; the Idaho Horsemen from Nampa; the Reno Express; the Sacramento Spartans; and the Wenatchee Valley Skyhawks.
6. Running and throwing
The Tri-Cities region had numerous star athletes shine in both track and field, and cross country.
In November, Kennewick senior Johan Correa pulled away from the rest of the Class 3A boys field to win the individual title at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco.
In that same race, the Kamiakin boys repeated as team champions. Led by third-place finisher Ryan Child, the Braves repeated their epic 2017 feat by defeating perennial power North Central of Spokane for the title.
- Other great performances included Kennewick junior Geraldin Correa placing second in the 3A girls race; a second-place team finish by the Kamiakin girls in the same race; and a third-place team finish for the Connell boys in the 1A race.
- Mid-Columbia track and field athletes had their moments too. Namely Chiawana’s boys. Germain Barnes, who currently attends Colorado State University to compete in track, led the Riverhawks with first-place finishes in the 4A boys 110 high hurdles and the 300 hurdles. Barnes’ teammates, Bennie Alferness, Sisay West, Teddy Hunter and Cameron Breier, combined to win the 4A boys 4x400 relay title. This all helped Chiawana share the state team title with Camas, Bothell and Issaquah. Kennewick’s Johan Correa (3A boys 800) and Moses McAninch (3A boys javelin) also won state titles, while Connell’s Seer Deines (1A boys shot put) and Halli Whitby (1A girls discus) earned state crowns too.
7. Tri-City Dust Devils
The Tri-Cities’ professional minor-league baseball franchise failed to make the Northwest League playoffs with a 35-41 overall record.
But there were plenty of highlights — including a team-high average game attendance of 2,332 fans.
Shortstop Owen Miller was one of the league’s better hitters with a .335 batting average — good enough for him to get a call-up to Fort Wayne in the Midwest League.
Meanwhile, starting pitcher Angel Acevedo was among league leaders with a 3.88 earned run average and 54 strikeouts. Acevedo also had a 4-3 won-loss record.
But it was reliever Jordan Guerrero who caught the eyes of most scouts. Guerrero, who had eight saves, was named to the NWL all-star team at the end of the season.
In late October, the team and the city of Pasco announced the Dust Devils would be getting $2 million of improvements at Gesa Stadium. The Pasco City Council approved the allocation of 2019 hotel taxes. The approved recommendation paves the way for financing to be repaid with hotel taxes of $160,000 annually over an estimated 20 years.
8. Motorsports
Andrew Tate drove the U-9 Les Schwab Tires to victory in late July at the HAPO Columbia Cup, giving U-9 owners Mike and Lori Jones their first-ever unlimited hydroplane victory on the Columbia River.
It became the turning point in the H1 season for Tate and the U-9 team, who easily took control of the national high points championship race at what was the halfway point of the season.
Jeff Campbell, the crew chief for the U-9 Les Schwab Tires, made his driver, Andrew Tate, sit in his boat at the dock at Lampson Pits a little longer during the HAPO Columbia Cup final on Sunday.
U-1 Miss HomeStreet Bank driver Jimmy Shane and his team had a weekend to forget, as the data collected in two of the team’s four heat races showed the boat was running illegally. That forced the team to be disqualified for those races, losing all-important points.
- In Hermiston, the local race track was renamed Hermiston Raceway and taken over by Tri-Citian Greg Walden and his father, Wayne. The Walden family upgraded the track and promoted it around the Northwest. Greg Walden has two more years on the lease at the Raceway.
9. Soccer
Soccer gained a foothold on Tri-Citians’ imaginations years ago.
But the sport gained even more momentum around here when the Tri-Cities Alliance FC joined the Evergreen Premier League as an expansion franchise in 2018.
The Alliance became the ninth franchise in the statewide semi-pro league, and just missed the playoffs when the Spokane Shadow edged out the Alliance to win the Columbia Division title. The Alliance finished the season with a 3-6-1 record.
- Pasco High boys soccer team won the 4A state title in May with a 1-0 victory over Skyline, as Ivan Ceja found the back of the net in the 84th minute.
- Kamiakin girls finished third at the 3A state soccer tournament in November.
- Prescott boys found a way to win a state title in 1B/2B soccer; Wahluke’s boys placed second at 1A state, while Royal’s boys were right behind in third.
10. Championship battles
Other Mid-Columbia teams and athletes found championships, while others fell just short.
- First, the champs, which includes seven area wrestlers: Kamiakin’s Austin Almaguer (132 pounds, 3A boys); Connell’s Alexander Deines (285, 1A boys); Warden’s Martin Dominguez (220, 1A boys); Othello’s Chris Melo (106, 2A boys); Kamiakin’s Jacob Olson (170, 3A boys); Othello’s Isaiah Perez (285, 2A boys); and Hanford’s Taylor Wilson, 100, girls).
- CBC’s Dan Clifford coached his women’s team to the NWAC golf title in May. Brianna Esvelt and Breanna Watts finished 2-3 to lead the Hawks to the title.
- Led by all-state players Alaina Lacey, Lindsay Rosenthal and Sage Brustad, the Richland volleyball team finished second at the 4A state tournament in November, losing to West Valley of Yakima in the championship. Bombers coach Bob Raidl was named Class 4A co-coach of the year.
- Kamiakin’s gymnastics team placed second in 3A girls state competition in February.
- Southridge’s Samantha Hui placed fourth in the state 3A girls golf tournament in May.
- Tri-Cities Prep’s volleyball team placed fourth at the 2B state tournament in November.