Stanwood boys basketball coach Zach Ward is keeping the weather’s impact on his team in perspective.
On Thursday, the Spartans’ scheduled Wesco North game at Oak Harbor was canceled, along with school in Stanwood, because of rising floodwaters from the Stillaguamish River.
With a home game against Cascade scheduled for today, Ward made the trip north from his home in Marysville to see the conditions for himself. He found the school’s gymnasium had been turned into a shelter for residents of a nearby retirement community.
“The gym is full — it’s packed, cot-to-cot the whole way,” Ward said Thursday. “It’s like something you saw on TV with New Orleans (during Hurricane Katrina).
“There are a lot bigger things going on in that town right now than high school basketball.”
Across Snohomish County, high school winter sports programs have suffered a one-two punch from the weather over the past two months. In large ways and small, the snow and ice of December and now the rain and flooding of January have impacted the prep sports scene.
“A couple of years ago we missed a practice or two because of flooding, but nothing like this,” Ward said. “There were places near the school that had 30 inches of snow two weeks ago … 30 inches is crazy.”
Although school districts had scheduled holiday breaks at the same time the snow and ice arrived in December, for many coaches that time had been planned in advance for focused training and preparation for league and possible playoff competitions.
“It’s been two and a half weeks now where we haven’t had more than two practices in a row,” Ward said. “It’s frustrating. Winter break is a chance to put new plays in, to start the New Year with a full repertoire.”
“Christmas break is one of those times you don’t have to worry about competition,” said Eric Smith, Cascade boys swimming coach. “You can just train right through.”
Smith’s Bruins lost practice time when snow closed the school, and lost more time in the water when the weather caused their practice pool at Forrest Park to shut down.
The Bruins’ swim meet at Stanwood on Thursday was postponed because of the flooding, but Smith said his squad is less worried about the regular season than what comes after: district and state meets.
“We’re going to train through the (regular-season) meets, treat the meets as workouts,” Smith said. “We’re not too concerned with our (meet) results. We’re really focused on the end of the season.”
The lack of pool time — either for practice or meets — will have less impact on swimmers who belong to club teams that compete year round, Smith said. Athletes who swim just during the 12-week prep season may have a tougher time making up for lost conditioning, but even they should be able to recover before the postseason, Smith said.
“I don’t see us having a huge disadvantage,” he said. “We got plenty of yards in over the break; lots of kids went to swim at the pools that were open. Even if it wasn’t organized, they were training.”
Maintaining his athletes’ physical conditioning was also on the mind of Rodney Walker, head coach of the Sultan girls basketball team.
“We were off for 11 days because of the snow,” Walker said. “It affects your conditioning and timing — all the stuff you try to do early in the season goes away. … Now we lose two more practices (to the flooding).”
The Turks’ Thursday home game against Archbishop Murphy was postponed, but even if they could have played, starting point guard Courtney Batts and two other players were isolated by flooding and wouldn’t have made it to the game.
Batts’ home is in Index, but she was trapped by the rising waters around Sultan while staying with friend and teammate Maggie Nuyen.
On Thursday night, Batts and Nuyen huddled together over a cell phone in a dark house. The basement had flooded “up to the second step,” Nuyen said, so the family shut the power off as a precaution.
“Both our league games were canceled,” Batts said. “Granite Falls because of snow and Archbishop Murphy because of the flood. It really stinks missing practice, especially when I know everyone else is there.”
The impact of the recent flooding was not as evenly distributed as the snowfall of December, Walker said.
“Everybody got dumped on by the snow; this is different,” Walker said. “The biggest thing about it is we’re going to have to play a lot of makeup games.”
For the Cascade swim team, that means having its makeup meet with Stanwood on Jan. 23, and then three meets the following week.
Ward, the Stanwood boys coach, said the weather-affected schedule will not hurt his team.
“The kids are great with things like this,” he said. “They’re better with it than I am. They just want to play basketball.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
