Grab a pen, it’s time to sign on the dotted line

Published 11:50 pm Monday, November 12, 2007

The gap between high school and college will soon feel a lot smaller for many of the area’s exceptional prep athletes.

The NCAA early signing period for several sports begins Wednesday morning. Starting at 7 a.m., high school student-athletes can sign and submit a binding National Letter of Intent to accept a college athletic scholarship. Sports covered in the early period include boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball.

The signing periods for football, boys and girls soccer, cross country, and track and field doesn’t start until Feb. 6, 2008.

Loads of standout local competitors have made verbal commitments to various programs and plan to sign during the weeklong early period, which continues through Nov. 21. Here is a sport-by-sport look at some of the seniors expected to sign this week.

Girls basketball

Kristi Kingma of Jackson, The Herald’s 2006-2007 All-Area Girls Basketball Player of the Year, has committed to the University of Washington. Meanwhile, Meadowdale’s Eryn Jones, one of Kingma’s Western Conference South Division rivals, committed to Portland State University. Kingma and Jones are among the top Class of 2008 guards in the state.

Baseball

Snohomish’s Derek Jones and Mountlake Terrace’s Jake Theis, two of the area’s most dominant pitchers, will sign with Washington State University. Jones, a left-handed pitcher, and Theis, a right-hander, will sign 4 p.m. Wednesday at a ceremony in Seattle, along with non-local WSU recruits Kyle Buchanan and David Olson (both from Auburn High) and Anthony Drobnick (Seattle Prep). Jones was The Herald’s 2007 All-Area Baseball Player of the Year.

Meanwhile, Jackson center fielder Danny Oh committed to the University of California, Berkeley — one of WSU’s Pacific-10 Conference foes.

Softball

Gifted pitchers Jordan Birch (Monroe) and Cory Mattson (Everett) could sign during the early period, too. Birch, The Herald’s 2007 All-Area Softball Player of the Year, is committed to Illinois State University. And Mattson, who had some memorable duels against Birch last season, will sign with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Everett coach Kyle Peacocke said.

Other top softball recruits-to-be include Jackson shortstop Ashley Todd (Penn State University) and Marysville-Pilchuck first baseman Skyler Peterson (Texas Tech University).

Volleyball

The following girls are expected to cement their verbal commitments: Monroe middle hitter Kelsey Brennan (New Mexico State University), Kamiak outside hitter Julia Church (University of Idaho), Kamiak middle blocker Jordan Keller (Seattle University),

King’s senior/Lynnwood resident Bianca Rowland (Washington) and Lynnwood hitter Kaytlyn Dill (Seattle U.).

It was a rough weekend for area’s gridiron teams

Nine local football teams were active last weekend entering the first round of state playoffs. But by Saturday night, just three emerged. Three Wesco schools — Edmonds-Woodway and Oak Harbor (both 4A) and Meadowdale (3A) — won to advance to quarterfinal contests this week. The half-dozen teams who suffered season-ending defeats were Snohomish (which lost against E-W), Mariner, Cascade, Archbishop Murphy, Darrington and Highland Christian. Of course, Murphy didn’t lose on the field. Its season surprisingly ended because of an ineligible player violation that the program self-reported and unsuccessfully appealed.

The no-phone zone

Coaches try all sorts of things to get their athletes to concentrate. Monroe coach Dawn Hanson used an unusual but effective method this past weekend at the Class 4A state volleyball championships. Hanson enforced a “no cell phone” rule 10 p.m. Friday night, collecting the Bearcats’ phones and stuffing them in a plastic bag, and she didn’t give them back until Saturday afternoon after Monroe clinched a top-eight trophy by winning back-to-back consolation-round matches. The goal was to prevent Monroe players from getting distracted by calls or text messages, said Hanson.

“We held (the phones) ransom until after we were done because we needed to focus to get us to the hardware game,” she said.

Monroe went on to win the eighth-place trophy, the first 4A hardware in program history.

Familiar foe

The Kamiak volleyball team’s first-round opponent Friday in the 4A state tournament was Shadle Park of Spokane. It was an extra-interesting encounter because Kamiak assistant coach Kim Reitz graduated from Shadle Park in 1993 and played for the Highlanders. In high school, Reitz was actually a friend of current Shadle coach Brooke Cooper, who was a Shadle senior when Reitz was a freshman. Reitz played on three consecutive state tourney-qualifying squads at Shadle. And as for the reunion between Reitz and Cooper: Kamiak swept Shadle 3-0 in the first round, but both teams placed. Kamiak finished fourth, Shadle fifth.

Dedicated to Ennis

The Archbishop Murphy volleyball team went 3-1 at the 2A state tourney and placed fifth, winning the first top-eight trophy in team history. Murphy coach Jim Hardy said the Wildcats dedicated their performance to former Murphy athletic director and football coach Terry Ennis, who in September died of cancer. As athletic director, Ennis in 2003 challenged Hardy and former Murphy coach Mike Bettinghouse to develop a state-caliber program, Hardy said. The Wildcats did it, placing behind just four teams in the state after finishing third a week earlier in the District 1 tourney.