By Lillian TuckerIssaquah Press reporter

The Skyline High School softball team turned its season record on its head with an 11-1 victory over Redmond High School on April 9.

“I was really impressed,” said head coach Alison Mitchell, who explained that the Redmond Mustangs are a team that usu-ally finds a way to hang around and win. “It was nice to get that monkey off our back, because I know our team is much more capable than our record has shown.”

The Skyline Spartans had gotten off to a rocky start of conference play with consecutive losses to Issaquah and Newport. But their stay at the bottom of the KingCo 4A-Crest standings didn’t last long. The score was tied at zero at the bottom of

the third inning when Winter Ridgeway, Skyline’s freshman pitcher, hit a single to secure herself on first. Fellow fresh-man Tia Hedman followed with another single. With runners on first and second, Natalie De La Garrigue smacked a double to bring Ridgeway home and for the first time this season; Skyline had the lead.

The momentum continued to grow as Riley Davidson stepped up the plate. Hitting a triple, she brought Hedman and De La Gar-rigue home and landed herself on third where she didn’t stay put for long. On the next pitch, Davidson stole home, giving Skyline a 4-0 advantage.

“It was great when our bats came alive,” said Ridgeway, who hit three for four against

By Sebastian MoragaIssaquah Press reporter

Darren Tremblay had plenty of reason to be happy.

“It was a total team effort,” the Liberty boys soccer head coach said of the Patriots’ 3-0 win over Mount Si. “Every guy played well.”

The Patriots populated their back lines, playing the Wildcats with a 4-5-1, stifling the creativity of the Mount Si squad at three-fourths of the field. The Wildcats had one shot on goal.

“It’s the only time we do this, when we play Mount Si,” Trem-blay said of the tactical forma-tion that puts four defenders, a crowded midfield of five and a lone forward on the pitch. “They play 4-3-3, so there’s nobody out wide and we can match up man-to-man in the middle.”

Quick counterattacks put the Patriots on the board and in a prime position at the start of the second half of the season.

“It’s a big win for us,” Tremblay said. “If we were going to try to win this thing, we had to have this one. We would have been two games back if we had not beat Mount Si.”

The opposite happened to Mount Si, which dropped from first in the league to third with the loss. Head Coach Darren Brown said his team suffered from a lack of leadership.

“We didn’t show up to play tonight,” he said. “I think it’s our lack of focus, lack of being ready before a game. We did the same thing over and over again, just really poor play. It was embar-rassing.”

The Wildcats had a five-game winning streak to start conference play. Since then, they’ve lost to Bellevue, tied Mercer Island and then lost to Liberty.

The Patriots’ scoring began in the 50th minute, when freshman Connor Noblat scored off a pass

from Jared Bales. Ten minutes later, Josh Johnson scored off an assist from Eric Warlick.

With two minutes left, senior Zach Lentini sealed the win with a rocket off the crossbar.

Liberty is undefeated in its last six games, playing some stingy defense. The Patriots have given up more than one goal in confer-ence play just once this season in their season-opening loss against

the Wildcats, 3-2.“The key is probably they all

play together in a club team,” Tremblay said of his defense. “All those guys play club, so the chem-istry is really good and they work well together.”

Next up for Liberty was a home match against Bellevue on April 17 and then another home match April 20 against Sammamish. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m.

SPORTSs s

The Issaquah Press

�Wednesday, April 18, 2012Page B4

B4

By Christina LordsIssaquah Press reporter

It’s a known fact that when wa-ter polo players from the Pacific Northwest travel to California for training and camps, they tend to stand out.

For their hard work and ethic, yes, but also because their skin can take time getting used to the summer sun.

But when 16-year-old Issaquah High School junior Sierra Hoff-man is busy following her dreams, she doesn’t mind getting a little burned.

After recently traveling to Miami to compete in the Olympic Development Program’s regional championship, Hoffman was se-lected as one of two goalies from

14 teams nationwide to move on to the Olympic Development Pipe-line National Team.

“It’s really nerve-wracking es-pecially because you start to rec-ognize the people that are there watching you,” she said. “You can’t let them get to you. The coaches were there for the youth national team watching and they introduced themselves. It gets dif-ficult because you really can start thinking about it too much.”

She’ll participate in a rigorous national team selection camp in Huntington Beach over Memorial Day weekend as she vies for a spot on the senior national team.

Members of that team can then go on to compete internationally in places like Canada, Hungary and Australia and represent the United

States at the Olympic Games.“I love the feeling of seeing how

far I can go,” Hoffman said. “It’s one thing to play a club sport ca-sually, but to really participate in something like this … I just really want to push myself to see where it ends up.”

And Hoffman, who has been playing water polo since seventh grade and swimming competi-tively for longer, doesn’t take anything about what she does casually. After she realized she didn’t like the feel of competitive swimming and its racing environ-ment, she knew she still needed to find a home in the water.

That’s when she discovered water polo.

The team she’s dedicated to and competes for now isn’t even in

this state.She competes with the Tualatin

Hills Water Polo Club, based out of Beaverton, Ore., taking the Am-trak train down to tournaments where her teammates pick her up from the train station.

When she’s not there or some-where en route, she can still be found in the water, practicing four nights a week at the Mercer Island Country Club with the Rain City Water Polo team.

She has started working with a personal trainer three times a week and has recently taken up mountain biking to increase the power and strength in her legs.

Danielle Hoffman, Sierra’s

By Tan VinhSeattle Times staff reporter

Despite its adventurous name, the Issaquah Alps Trails Club looks more like your local Lions Club.

“Most of the club members are getting pretty long in the tooth,” said board member George Potter, 63. “The average age of our board is almost 70.”

The graying of this grass roots hiking-and-environmental advo-cacy group has spawned a new goal: to get younger, edgier and hipper, if only for its very survival.

“We think the purpose of the club is pretty valuable,” Potter said. “We don’t want the club to die because the members are getting too old. We’re trying to get some new blood into the club.”

Every week, the hiking club offers up to three free guided and open-to-the-public hikes, some short, some up to 6 miles, many easy-to-moderate hikes that aren’t stressful on cranky knees.

But this isn’t the Issaquah Alps Trails Club for the Ben-Gay gen-eration, at least not anymore, club members said.

Tougher treksThis month, the club rolls out

a series of “long, strenuous” day hikes during spring and summer to draw people who’ve grown up during the Facebook age and like to spend weekends camping or mountain biking.

On April 29, the club offers a 15-mile hike, with 2,550 feet elevation gain, starting from New-castle Beach Park and climbing to Cougar Mountain and the north side of Squak Mountain.

The club also offers geocache or GPS treasure hunts tailored to families with young children.

Started in 1979 by the late Har-vey Manning and William Long-well, the club formed to preserve the area encompassing Tiger, Squak, Cougar, Rattlesnake and Taylor mountains and to promote

trails along the Interstate 90 corri-dor from Issaquah to North Bend.

Manning anointed this area “the Issaquah Alps,” a misleading mon-iker. There’s little resemblance to the grand, snowcapped European range. But the name stuck and the club has stuck around.

Free hikes weekly

To convince the public that the “Alps” are worth preserving, club members lead free hikes to showcase the natural wonder in Issaquah’s backyard. On a recent Sunday, club president David Kappler, 63, led a small group on

a network of trails the club carved out decades ago on the northwest side of Tiger Mountain.

This 5-mile hike, on the Wet-land Trail, traversed an evergreen forest where lush firs muffle the roar from Interstate 90. A down-pour made this dense area look like the Hoh River rain forest, a bit primordial and surreal.

Club members are trail care-takers as well as guides. Kappler had hiked these trails a month earlier, trudging in the snow after a storm, with a handsaw and branch trimmer, sawing off a skinny cedar that had collapsed on the path. He also spotted a gi-ant Douglas fir that had crashed down at the trailhead and report-ed it to the state Department of Natural Resources so it could send in a crew to clear it.

That’s the nitty-gritty of this club’s work. In late January, after an ice and snowstorm made it dif-ficult for hikers to find trails un-der the blanket of fallen branches,

club members cleared portions of the Wilderness Creek Trail, the

BY GREG FARRAR

Sierra Hoffman, an Issaquah High School junior, puts her arms up to block a shot during practice with the Rain City Water Polo team April 12 at the Mercer Island Country Club.

KEN LAMBERT/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Hikers charge upward during a 5-mile Issaquah Alps Trails Club hike on Cougar Mountain.

Issaquah hiking club aims to get edgier, hipper — and younger

See HIKING, Page B5

IF YOU GOThe Issaquah Alps Trails Club

offers up to three group hikes every week during spring and summer. New to the mix: some strenuous hikes, up to 15 miles, aimed at younger hikers. Free to the public. The meet-up location varies. Check www.issaquahalps.org for a schedule.

For information about how to vol-unteer or become active in the club, call David Kappler at 652-2753.

The club will organize a major trail cleanup April 22 at Tiger Mountain. Volunteers are needed; check the website for details.

Eagle is chosen to swim for Olympic pipeline team

See OLYMPICS, Page B5

BY CALDER PRODUCTIONS

Zach Lentini (right), a Liberty High School senior, goes head-to-head-to-header against Mount Si junior midfielder Erik Stai during the second period of their April 13 match.

Patriots blank Mount Si, 3-0

By Matt CarstensIssaquah Press reporter

It doesn’t hurt when you score nine runs in the first two innings. It also never hurts when your starting pitcher throws a complete game shut-out, and that’s what Issaquah High School senior pitcher Brandon Mahovlich did April 13 as Issaquah defeated Roos-evelt, 9-0.

“It makes it a lot easier,” the winning pitcher said. “I can just go out there and throw strikes and not have to worry about it. They can score a couple runs and I can just pitch confidently with a lead.”

And quite a lead it was. Issa-quah jumped straight out of the gates with a two-run homer from senior shortstop Jake Bakamus, and followed that with the next five batters all touching home plate.

“We’ve really been strug-gling the last week and a half to score runs,” Issaquah head coach Rob Reese said. “So that kind of gave us some momen-tum. We had the best pitcher in the league pitching for us today, and when you give him that many runs it makes it easy.”

Mahovlich took his no-hitter into the seventh inning before surrendering a single to Roos-evelt’s clean-up hitter Graylin Derke.

“Everything was working,” Mahovlich said. “I was finding the zone with all my pitches, and just avoiding their bats I guess.”

Although he sprinkled a few

BY LILLIAN TUCKER

Erika Wolfe, Skyline High School Spartans catcher, slides safely into home to score their eighth run at the bottom of the fifth inning.

Skyline earns first conference win

See SOFTBALL, Page B5See BASEBALL, Page B5

Issaquah defeats

Roosevelt

By Lillian TuckerIssaquah Press reporter

The Skyline High School softball team turned its season record on its head with an 11-1 victory over Redmond High School on April 9.

“I was really impressed,” said head coach Alison Mitchell, who explained that the Redmond Mustangs are a team that usu-ally finds a way to hang around and win. “It was nice to get that monkey off our back, because I know our team is much more capable than our record has shown.”

The Skyline Spartans had gotten off to a rocky start of conference play with consecutive losses to Issaquah and Newport. But their stay at the bottom of the KingCo 4A-Crest standings didn’t last long. The score was tied at zero at the bottom of

the third inning when Winter Ridgeway, Skyline’s freshman pitcher, hit a single to secure herself on first. Fellow fresh-man Tia Hedman followed with another single. With runners on first and second, Natalie De La Garrigue smacked a double to bring Ridgeway home and for the first time this season; Skyline had the lead.

The momentum continued to grow as Riley Davidson stepped up the plate. Hitting a triple, she brought Hedman and De La Gar-rigue home and landed herself on third where she didn’t stay put for long. On the next pitch, Davidson stole home, giving Skyline a 4-0 advantage.

“It was great when our bats came alive,” said Ridgeway, who hit three for four against

By Sebastian MoragaIssaquah Press reporter

Darren Tremblay had plenty of reason to be happy.

“It was a total team effort,” the Liberty boys soccer head coach said of the Patriots’ 3-0 win over Mount Si. “Every guy played well.”

The Patriots populated their back lines, playing the Wildcats with a 4-5-1, stifling the creativity of the Mount Si squad at three-fourths of the field. The Wildcats had one shot on goal.

“It’s the only time we do this, when we play Mount Si,” Trem-blay said of the tactical forma-tion that puts four defenders, a crowded midfield of five and a lone forward on the pitch. “They play 4-3-3, so there’s nobody out wide and we can match up man-to-man in the middle.”

Quick counterattacks put the Patriots on the board and in a prime position at the start of the second half of the season.

“It’s a big win for us,” Tremblay said. “If we were going to try to win this thing, we had to have this one. We would have been two games back if we had not beat Mount Si.”

The opposite happened to Mount Si, which dropped from first in the league to third with the loss. Head Coach Darren Brown said his team suffered from a lack of leadership.

“We didn’t show up to play tonight,” he said. “I think it’s our lack of focus, lack of being ready before a game. We did the same thing over and over again, just really poor play. It was embar-rassing.”

The Wildcats had a five-game winning streak to start conference play. Since then, they’ve lost to Bellevue, tied Mercer Island and then lost to Liberty.

The Patriots’ scoring began in the 50th minute, when freshman Connor Noblat scored off a pass

from Jared Bales. Ten minutes later, Josh Johnson scored off an assist from Eric Warlick.

With two minutes left, senior Zach Lentini sealed the win with a rocket off the crossbar.

Liberty is undefeated in its last six games, playing some stingy defense. The Patriots have given up more than one goal in confer-ence play just once this season in their season-opening loss against

the Wildcats, 3-2.“The key is probably they all

play together in a club team,” Tremblay said of his defense. “All those guys play club, so the chem-istry is really good and they work well together.”

Next up for Liberty was a home match against Bellevue on April 17 and then another home match April 20 against Sammamish. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m.

SPORTSs s

The Issaquah Press

�Wednesday, April 18, 2012Page B4

B4

By Christina LordsIssaquah Press reporter

It’s a known fact that when wa-ter polo players from the Pacific Northwest travel to California for training and camps, they tend to stand out.

For their hard work and ethic, yes, but also because their skin can take time getting used to the summer sun.

But when 16-year-old Issaquah High School junior Sierra Hoff-man is busy following her dreams, she doesn’t mind getting a little burned.

After recently traveling to Miami to compete in the Olympic Development Program’s regional championship, Hoffman was se-lected as one of two goalies from

14 teams nationwide to move on to the Olympic Development Pipe-line National Team.

“It’s really nerve-wracking es-pecially because you start to rec-ognize the people that are there watching you,” she said. “You can’t let them get to you. The coaches were there for the youth national team watching and they introduced themselves. It gets dif-ficult because you really can start thinking about it too much.”

She’ll participate in a rigorous national team selection camp in Huntington Beach over Memorial Day weekend as she vies for a spot on the senior national team.

Members of that team can then go on to compete internationally in places like Canada, Hungary and Australia and represent the United

States at the Olympic Games.“I love the feeling of seeing how

far I can go,” Hoffman said. “It’s one thing to play a club sport ca-sually, but to really participate in something like this … I just really want to push myself to see where it ends up.”

And Hoffman, who has been playing water polo since seventh grade and swimming competi-tively for longer, doesn’t take anything about what she does casually. After she realized she didn’t like the feel of competitive swimming and its racing environ-ment, she knew she still needed to find a home in the water.

That’s when she discovered water polo.

The team she’s dedicated to and competes for now isn’t even in

this state.She competes with the Tualatin

Hills Water Polo Club, based out of Beaverton, Ore., taking the Am-trak train down to tournaments where her teammates pick her up from the train station.

When she’s not there or some-where en route, she can still be found in the water, practicing four nights a week at the Mercer Island Country Club with the Rain City Water Polo team.

She has started working with a personal trainer three times a week and has recently taken up mountain biking to increase the power and strength in her legs.

Danielle Hoffman, Sierra’s

By Tan VinhSeattle Times staff reporter

Despite its adventurous name, the Issaquah Alps Trails Club looks more like your local Lions Club.

“Most of the club members are getting pretty long in the tooth,” said board member George Potter, 63. “The average age of our board is almost 70.”

The graying of this grass roots hiking-and-environmental advo-cacy group has spawned a new goal: to get younger, edgier and hipper, if only for its very survival.

“We think the purpose of the club is pretty valuable,” Potter said. “We don’t want the club to die because the members are getting too old. We’re trying to get some new blood into the club.”

Every week, the hiking club offers up to three free guided and open-to-the-public hikes, some short, some up to 6 miles, many easy-to-moderate hikes that aren’t stressful on cranky knees.

But this isn’t the Issaquah Alps Trails Club for the Ben-Gay gen-eration, at least not anymore, club members said.

Tougher treksThis month, the club rolls out

a series of “long, strenuous” day hikes during spring and summer to draw people who’ve grown up during the Facebook age and like to spend weekends camping or mountain biking.

On April 29, the club offers a 15-mile hike, with 2,550 feet elevation gain, starting from New-castle Beach Park and climbing to Cougar Mountain and the north side of Squak Mountain.

The club also offers geocache or GPS treasure hunts tailored to families with young children.

Started in 1979 by the late Har-vey Manning and William Long-well, the club formed to preserve the area encompassing Tiger, Squak, Cougar, Rattlesnake and Taylor mountains and to promote

trails along the Interstate 90 corri-dor from Issaquah to North Bend.

Manning anointed this area “the Issaquah Alps,” a misleading mon-iker. There’s little resemblance to the grand, snowcapped European range. But the name stuck and the club has stuck around.

Free hikes weekly

To convince the public that the “Alps” are worth preserving, club members lead free hikes to showcase the natural wonder in Issaquah’s backyard. On a recent Sunday, club president David Kappler, 63, led a small group on

a network of trails the club carved out decades ago on the northwest side of Tiger Mountain.

This 5-mile hike, on the Wet-land Trail, traversed an evergreen forest where lush firs muffle the roar from Interstate 90. A down-pour made this dense area look like the Hoh River rain forest, a bit primordial and surreal.

Club members are trail care-takers as well as guides. Kappler had hiked these trails a month earlier, trudging in the snow after a storm, with a handsaw and branch trimmer, sawing off a skinny cedar that had collapsed on the path. He also spotted a gi-ant Douglas fir that had crashed down at the trailhead and report-ed it to the state Department of Natural Resources so it could send in a crew to clear it.

That’s the nitty-gritty of this club’s work. In late January, after an ice and snowstorm made it dif-ficult for hikers to find trails un-der the blanket of fallen branches,

club members cleared portions of the Wilderness Creek Trail, the

BY GREG FARRAR

Sierra Hoffman, an Issaquah High School junior, puts her arms up to block a shot during practice with the Rain City Water Polo team April 12 at the Mercer Island Country Club.

KEN LAMBERT/THE SEATTLE TIMES

Hikers charge upward during a 5-mile Issaquah Alps Trails Club hike on Cougar Mountain.

Issaquah hiking club aims to get edgier, hipper — and younger

See HIKING, Page B5

IF YOU GOThe Issaquah Alps Trails Club

offers up to three group hikes every week during spring and summer. New to the mix: some strenuous hikes, up to 15 miles, aimed at younger hikers. Free to the public. The meet-up location varies. Check www.issaquahalps.org for a schedule.

For information about how to vol-unteer or become active in the club, call David Kappler at 652-2753.

The club will organize a major trail cleanup April 22 at Tiger Mountain. Volunteers are needed; check the website for details.

Eagle is chosen to swim for Olympic pipeline team

See OLYMPICS, Page B5

BY CALDER PRODUCTIONS

Zach Lentini (right), a Liberty High School senior, goes head-to-head-to-header against Mount Si junior midfielder Erik Stai during the second period of their April 13 match.

Patriots blank Mount Si, 3-0

By Matt CarstensIssaquah Press reporter

It doesn’t hurt when you score nine runs in the first two innings. It also never hurts when your starting pitcher throws a complete game shut-out, and that’s what Issaquah High School senior pitcher Brandon Mahovlich did April 13 as Issaquah defeated Roos-evelt, 9-0.

“It makes it a lot easier,” the winning pitcher said. “I can just go out there and throw strikes and not have to worry about it. They can score a couple runs and I can just pitch confidently with a lead.”

And quite a lead it was. Issa-quah jumped straight out of the gates with a two-run homer from senior shortstop Jake Bakamus, and followed that with the next five batters all touching home plate.

“We’ve really been strug-gling the last week and a half to score runs,” Issaquah head coach Rob Reese said. “So that kind of gave us some momen-tum. We had the best pitcher in the league pitching for us today, and when you give him that many runs it makes it easy.”

Mahovlich took his no-hitter into the seventh inning before surrendering a single to Roos-evelt’s clean-up hitter Graylin Derke.

“Everything was working,” Mahovlich said. “I was finding the zone with all my pitches, and just avoiding their bats I guess.”

Although he sprinkled a few

BY LILLIAN TUCKER

Erika Wolfe, Skyline High School Spartans catcher, slides safely into home to score their eighth run at the bottom of the fifth inning.

Skyline earns first conference win

See SOFTBALL, Page B5See BASEBALL, Page B5

Issaquah defeats

Roosevelt