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The La Conner Braves slayed Lions twice in hoops action last weekend. La Conner defeated the NW2B/1B rival Concrete Lions 59-31 on the road Friday, then returned home to Landy James Gym Saturday for a 67-52 non-league win over the Sound Christian Academy Lions. With the wins, the Braves improved to 8-4 overall and 2-0 in league play. Ivory Damien (24) and Brayden Pedroza (23) combined for 47 points at Concrete, which was celebrating the 72nd anniversary of the opening of its storied gymnasium. T...
They were in a foul mood throughout, but the La Conner High School Lady Braves were able to smile after grinding out a 57-29 NW2B/1B for a smashing hoops win at Concrete Friday night. La Conner (7-4 overall, 2-0 in league) won by double digits despite being assessed 21 fouls. Maeve McCormick led nine La Conner scorers with 15 points, including the team’s lone three-pointer. Jacqui Lam, Nora McCormick, Kim Williams and Kiana Jenkins – all eighth graders – finished with eight points apiece for the victors. Another eighth grader, Abi Poult...
The La Conner High School boys’ basketball team got pounded in Seattle over the weekend. But not on the scoreboard. The Braves split two closely fought, loosely called holiday tournament games with teams from larger schools, each contest decided in the final seconds. Ivory Damien and Brayden Pedroza scored 16 points apiece as La Conner edged The Northwest School, the tourney’s 1A host team, 44-41 on Friday night. The Braves led during much of Saturday’s matchup with 2A Black Hills, but fell 44-42 in Saturday’s title round of The Top of the Hil...
History stands to repeat itself in Concrete on Friday. Just as was the case in 1952, when the Concrete High School gymnasium first opened, visiting La Conner hoop teams will take the floor Jan. 5 in a rivalry that precedes the Great Depression. Members of the 1952 Concrete and La Conner teams will be honored as part of a “70-plus Years Anniversary” celebration at the iconic Concrete gym. The night’s events will also include a brief historical presentation and introductions of all-time Skagit County scorers Gail Thulen and Andy Otis of La Conne...
In recent months La Conner has leaned heavily on Langley as a model for community livability issues, from tiny homes and affordable housing to parking. Last Friday it was La Conner's turn to school Langley – on the basketball court. The high school girls' team drubbed South Whidbey 73-34 that afternoon at Landy James Gym while at the same time the high school boys routed the 1A Falcons 60-23 in Langley. "It was a good game on the road while on the holiday break," first-year Braves coach Lance L...
It was junior cheer night at Landy James Gym last Friday. And the La Conner High School girls’ basketball team gave both the youth cheerleaders and a large crowd plenty to applaud. Maeve McCormick scored a game-high 26 points, Shaniquah Casey filled the stat sheet with 16 points, six rebounds, six steals and two assists, Nora McCormick added six points and a half dozen steals and Jackie Lam finished with six points and eight boards in drubbing 1B Oakville 56-35 to improve to 5-2. Alyssa Forsythe and Laela Baker scored 10 points apiece for t...
The atmosphere was electric at the Dec. 11 La Conner School board meeting. Campus solarization options lit up the room. La Conner Town Council member MaryLee Chamberlain and resident Bob Raymond, of the Skagit Valley Clean Energy Cooperative, provided an update on local solar grant projects, including a feasibility study and analysis of energy consumption at the school district. They made a pitch, eliciting a positive board reception, for the school district to convert to electric buses. The two presented data that showed cost savings and envir...
Coming off his selection as the Skagit Valley Herald Boys’ Athlete of the Week, La Conner’s Brayden Pedroza provided Braves fans an impressive encore at Landy James Gym Friday night. The junior guard dazzled with an array of shots on his way to a game high 33 points, 10 of which came in the pivotal fourth quarter, to lead the hosts to a 69-51 non-league win over 1B Oakville. Pedroza found the hoop on slicing drives through the paint, mid-range jumpers, three-point bombs and at the free throw stripe where he converted five of six attempts. But...
The Kiwanis Club of La Conner November High School Student of the Month is Alex Martin. Alex is a La Conner High School a senior. His favorite class is math. He enjoys playing basketball and participating in track. After graduation he would like to study to become an electrician or diesel mechanic. Alex 's parents are James Washington and Bridgette Solomon. Reese Bird is the middle school Student of the Month. She is in eighth grade. She enjoys playing volleyball and basketball on the school...
Taylor Rae Cayou, a senior at La Conner High School and a full-time Running Start student at the North West Indian College, is the Soroptimist International of La Conner Honored Student for December. Taylor started at NWIC as a junior, dividing her time between the high school and NWIC. This year she is full time at the college. When June rolls around she will graduate with her class at the high school and will have an associates degree at NWIC. Her favorite class at NWIC is cultural sovereignty...
Sultan had trouble guarding one McCormick. Defending two proved impossible. Maeve McCormick scored a career-high 25 points, collected 11 steals and dished off a team-best three assists while Nora McCormick added 12 points, two steals and a pair of rebounds as La Conner breezed past the 1A Turks 48-28 in non-league high school girls’ hoops action at Landy James Gym Friday night. Each of the McCormick sisters delivered two perimeter treys. The home team led wire-to-wire, bolting to a quick 8-0 first quarter lead, to record its second straight h...
Brayden Pedroza has impressed La Conner High School basketball fans in the season's first couple weeks with his ability to defend, pass and score. They aren't alone. Pedroza has made an impression with his stellar play throughout the county. The junior guard was named Skagit Valley Herald Boys' Athlete of the Week after having scored in double digits in La Conner's first three contests. Pedroza scored 23 points against Oak Harbor, 18 opposite Sedro-Woolley and a game-high 25 in the dramatic...
The La Conner Braves basketball team are true road warriors. The team followed its convincing 65-44 NW2B/1B triumph at Orcas Island Dec. 5 with another all-day trip on Saturday – this time to 2A Kingston on the Kitsap Peninsula and likewise requiring a ferry ride. It was neither smooth sailing on rainy, wind-swept Puget Sound nor in the Buccaneers’ gym for the travel-weary Braves, however. Kingston was able to withstand another big scoring night by La Conner’s Brayden Pedroza, the Skagit Valley Herald Boys’ Athlete of the Week, to post a 64-56...
It's been a busy fall quarter in the La Conner School District. Owing to hard work and some long hours, La Conner School District staff, faculty and administration have successfully applied for and received grants that will benefit La Conner students and the community. $16,000 grant provides new oven The district's food service department received a $16,000 grant to purchase a new oven. Food service supervisor Kelly Kjarstad reports that the ovens at the elementary school went out last year,...
La Conner High School principal and athletic director Christine Tripp encourages the community to turn out for games at the Landy James Activity Court this winter. About 50 students are playing basketball this year, she said. The girls team head coach is Joe Harper, who is in his second year. He is assisted by Scottie Miller. Harper has coached a variety of sports, but has a passion for basketball, he said. The boys team head coach is Lance Lopez, now in his first year. He is assisted by John...
The school district's Advisory Committee for Education (ACE) continues to look for more members. The committee meets from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on the second Wednesday of each month. The committee concerns itself with ways to help the district be successful. Bring your ideas. Comment on programs under development. This is a great way to help the La Conner community, and you don't need to have a kid in school to take part. Call Cherri Kahns at the district office if you are interested,...
New La Conner High School boys’ basketball coach Lance Lopez said before the season tipped off that two goals for his team were to be competitive and draw large crowds to Landy James Gym. He achieved both in just the Braves’ second home date. La Conner (1-2) fought back from an early double-digit deficit to edge 1B power Lummi 62-58 in overtime Saturday night. The Braves, trailing much of the contest, forced the extra session when Corran Eisen took a side inbounds pass from C.J. Edwards and drained a long three-point jumper as time exp...
She was the driving force behind the La Conner High School girls' basketball team's convincing 63-36 non-league home win over Lummi last Saturday. But outside Landy James Gym, Kim Williams can't drive at all. The eighth grader is too young. But Williams had license to motor down the lane and from baseline to baseline against the Lady Blackhawks, delivering a game-high 26 points, including a trio of outside treys. Making her second career varsity start, Williams shot 11 of 22 from the floor and...
The loss of more than 50 points per game to graduation will be a tough task for the La Conner High School girls' basketball team to surmount this season. But second-year head coach Joe Harper, who guided La Conner to a fourth place finish at the Washington State Girls' 2B Hardwood Classic in Spokane last March, has crafted what he and assistants Scottie Miller and Roger Valentine hope will be yet another winning formula. The key terms in that equation are speed and defense. "Speed and defense,"...
Conway remains on the La Conner Schools radar. Faced with recent years of declining student enrollment, the driving force behind state funding of public schools, school district officials are resuming last year’s effort to recruit Conway students to the high school. Conway, 11 miles southeast of La Conner, has an elementary school whose graduates attend Mount Vernon High School but have the option of Stanwood or La Conner. “We’ll keep it going,” school board chair Susie Deyo said during board’s Nov. 13 hybrid study session of attempts...
Now it’s official. Last month it was announced that the La Conner Schools board of directors was a recipient of two performance-based statewide honors. Last week in Bellevue, during the Washington State School Directors Association fall conference, the members were formally recognized as a 2023 Board of Distinction and for being Washington’s School Board of the Year for small school districts. The five-member La Conner board – Susie Deyo, chair, and directors John Agen, Loran James, Kim Pedroza and J.J. Wilbur and student reps Taylor Rae Cayou...
They didn't win a single match this season, but Black Bird Landscaping U-11 girls' soccer players were champions, nonetheless. And not just here in town, but across the entire county. That's because the La Conner team was honored at the end of the regular season with the Skagit Valley Soccer Association's coveted Sportsmanship Award. On that score, it wasn't even close. During the season, referees assigned to youth soccer matches submitted scores for sportsmanship for each team on a 1-5 scale....
Strategic planning and chaos aren't mutually exclusive. That is the approach taken this coming high school basketball season by new La Conner Braves hoops coach Lance Lopez. Lopez, who has served on coaching staffs in various sports at Mount Vernon, Sedro-Woolley and his alma mater Burlington-Edison – larger schools – will employ "borderline chaos" to control tempo and take advantage of a versatile, athletic boys' roster this winter. "I'm very familiar with the group we have here," Lopez tol...
All good things must come to an end. Such was the case last week for a youthful and overachieving La Conner High School volleyball team that scored late season wins over two 3A schools and stormed back from a two-set deficit to league rival Coupeville at bi-district trials to secure a spot in the state 2B net tourney. This season’s stay in Yakima, however, was short-lived for the Lady Braves who, with just two seniors, were eliminated the first day and unable to defend the state crown La Conner had worn since 2018. La Conner fell in four s...
Coupeville was on the verge of winning the bi-district volleyball title here last Wednesday. Until it wasn't. The Lady Wolves fell prey to a scintillating La Conner comeback that saw the hosts erase a daunting 2-0 deficit to forge an emotional 22-25, 17-25, 25-23, 26-24, 15-12 two-hour, five-set victory for the 2023 Northwest 2B Bi-District championship and berth to the state tourney today (Nov. 8) in Yakima. La Conner offset Coupeville's relentless power game by playing stellar defense. The...
