A quick addition to my original post: Besides having so much success on the field, Archbishop Murphy student-athletes have also excelled in the classroom.
Three Wildcats teams have won Washington Interscholastic Activities Association academic state championships during the current school year: volleyball (3.76 grade-point average, wrestling (3.44 GPA) and boys golf (3.77 GPA).
Here is a complete list of Washington’s spring 2009 academic state-champion teams.
*****
I love getting story suggestions from Herald readers. In a lot of cases, you point me in the right direction and help me highlight worthy achievements that we haven’t yet publicized in the paper or online. Please keep it up!
The latest example happened Wednesday, when I got an e-mail from Jeff Shober, father of Archbishop Murphy student-athlete Rachel Shober. Jeff has taken a big-picture look at the 2008-09 school year and he noticed something about Murphy’s teams: The Class 2A Wildcats have dominated in pretty much every sport.
Looking at eight sports that use team standings (football, girls soccer and volleyball in the fall; boys basketball and girls basketball in the winter; and baseball, boys soccer and softball this spring), Jeff Shober found that Murphy won outright or shared Cascade Conference championships in every sport. (Wrestling is the only sport with team standings that Murphy didn’t earn a conference title in.)
So far this school year, Murphy’s eight previously mentioned conference-championship teams are a combined 104-8 (92.9 percent victorious) in league games and 142-20-1 overall (87.1 percent). Here is a sport-by-sport breakdown.
FALL
Football: 7-0 Cascade Conference (first place), 12-1 overall (lost in state semifinals to eventual champion Lynden)
Girls soccer: 12-2 Cascade Conference (tie-first place), 19-3-1 overall (third in state)
Volleyball: 13-1 Cascade Conference (tie-first place), 16-4 overall (qualified for state, did not place)
WINTER
Boys basketball: 14-0 Cascade Conference (first place), 17-5 overall (did not qualify for state)
Girls basketball: 14-0 Cascade Conference (first place), 26-1 overall (second in state)
SPRING
Baseball: 17-1 Cascade Conference (first place), 21-1 overall (qualified for state; result to be determined)
Boys soccer: 11-3 Cascade Conference (tie-first place), 14-4 overall (qualified for state; result to be determined)
Softball: 16-1 Cascade Conference (clinched at least a tie for first place), 17-1 overall (result to be determined)
Although several of them got close, none of Murphy’s 2008-09 squads have won a state title. Can the baseball, boys soccer or softball teams break through in the next few weeks and cap what has been an incredible school year?
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