The way Doug Plucker sees it, the cup is way more than half full.
Plucker, Arlington High’s new head baseball coach, is taking over a team that’s coming off a dismal 2005 season but he sees nothing but potential for the Eagles.
“I’m really excited about it. They have a lot of the right ingredients,” he said, “and hopefully they’re just missing a few.”
It’s the first head baseball job for Plucker, who was an assistant for Larry Delaney at Lakewood the past 13 seasons. Plucker takes over an Arlington program that finished at the bottom of the Western Conference North Division last spring with a 4-12 division record (5-15 overall).
“I’m really excited about the community of Arlington,” said Plucker, who also has coached football and wrestling at Lakewood. “It’s a real (committed) sports community. They back their programs.”
Plucker, 37, graduated from Spokane’s Ferris High in 1987 and played baseball at Walla Wall Community College, Eastern Washington University and Whitworth College in Spokane. He thought he had found a home at Eastern but was forced to leave when the school discontinued its baseball program after his junior season.
“It was kind of frustrating,” Plucker said. “It was really difficult for us seniors to find a place to go. I almost didn’t play my senior year, but I ended up having fun at Whitworth and I made some good friends.”
He also enjoyed success – Whitworth advanced to the NAIA regional championship during Plucker’s only season at the school. The challenging but rewarding experience gives Plucker the context to rally an Arlington group which hopes to bounce back this spring.
“It’s hard to get a good feel off of paper,” said Plucker, who has examined Arlington’s 2005 statistics but is still in the process of familiarizing himself with the Eagles, “but there’s some key kids who (were) successful last year.”
One of Arlington’s top players is senior Taylor Brown, a 6-foot, 205-pound pitcher. Last April, Brown tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right arm. He had surgery in May and recovered in time to contribute to the Arlington football team’s state-playoff run this fall. Brown has been working with a pitching coach and is on track to compete this spring, Stacy Brown, Taylor’s mother, said.
Point-guard paradise: Arlington’s Randi Richardson and Monroe’s Sarah Morton are two of the Wesco North’s elite girls basketball point guards. It’s always an entertaining battle when they clash on the court, but what would it be like to unite Richardson, a senior who averaged 20.5 points and 5.0 assists last season, with Morton, a junior (9.8 ppg, 5.2 apg, 4.1 steals per game in 2004-05)?
Don’t bother with imagination – it already happened, if only briefly. When Richardson was a sophomore and Morton was a freshman, they played together on Seattle’s Emerald City Basketball Academy club team. Recalling the experience, Richardson said she and Morton, who has received extensive interest from Division-I programs, alternated bringing the ball up the floor and quickly developed a solid on-court chemistry. “We started to know where the other one was going to be,” said Richardson, who accepted an athletic scholarship to play for the University of San Francisco. “We really started clicking.”
Luckily for opponents, the Richardson-Morton backcourt combination is a thing of the past. But the experience left an impression on Morton, who now plays club ball for the Spokane Stars: “It was a blast.”
On a mission: During her prep career, Arlington’s Richardson has been involved in victories over all but two Wesco North teams: Snohomish and Monroe. This year, she’s determined to complete the cycle. “It’s her last chance to beat them,” Arlington coach Corey Gibb said. “That’s her inspiration and her drive.”
The stopper: Snohomish girls basketball guard Daesha Henderson is known as one of the toughest defenders in the Wesco North. Arlington’s Richardson and Monroe junior Sarah Morton said Henderson, a senior, is as good as they come. “She has a lot of endurance and she’s very quick,” Richardson said. “She’s really good at reading what you’re going to do and cutting off your first step.” Said Morton, who has played against Henderson since the sixth grade, “She’s so fast but she also has those lanky arms. … It’s intense.”
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