Herald staff
The Snohomish Panthers came within the length of a football of winning Friday’s football opener against South Kitsap, said Panther coach Mark Perry.
Perry said that was the margin by which placekicker Derek Bennion missed a 54-yard field goal attempt in the fourth quarter of the 18-17 loss.
“He thumped it and it just kept climbing and climbing and climbing,” Perry said. “It was one foot short. It was a ball’s length from hitting the bar and it was dead center.”
Bennion kicked a 24-yard field goal in the first quarter and made two point-after-touchdown kicks. He missed a 47-yard attempt just before halftime that was long enough but wide.
A second-team all-league kicker last season, Bennion has gotten the attention of the college scouts, Perry said.
“He has more confidence and more power this year,” Perry said.
Bennion also put all of his kickoffs deep into the end zone, preventing any returns by South Kitsap’s all-state running back Ryan Cole.
You called me a what?: New Stanwood football coach J.J. Hanson absorbed what he considers a major insult recently. A newspaper called him a former kicker. Hanson, a former University of Washington linebacker, was somehow mistaken for Travis Hanson, who was the Huskies’ kicker from 1990-92, in a recent story. J.J. Hanson joined the team in 1992 and won a letter in 1993 as a redshirt freshman before a back injury and another subsequent surgery ended his playing career.
“They even talked about how I had a brother (former WSU kicker Jason Hanson, who is Travis Hanson’s older brother) playing for Detroit in the NFL,” J.J. Hanson said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Soccer additions: The Lynnwood girls soccer team may be suffering from low numbers: less than 30 players were on the varsity and junior varsity rosters when the season opened on September 4. Among them are two that do not attend Lynnwood High School, but participate through a Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rule that allows students attending a school lacking a particular program to take part in that program at the public school they would attend if they weren’t going to a private school. Freshman Sarah Smart attends Shoreline Christian and sophomore Breyanne Nordvedt attends King’s in Shoreline.
With only one senior, goaltender Stephanie Rhodes, on the roster, the Royals are young but have a bright future.
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