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La Conner teams came away from an all-day trip to the Olympic Peninsula with a tie and two close, hard-fought defeats in non-conference sports action on Saturday. Freshman Kiana Jenkins scored La Conner’s lone soccer goal to salvage a 1-1 draw at 1A Forks in a back-and-forth matinee battle with the Spartans. With the tie, the Braves’ season mark moved to 3-2-1 going into Tuesday’s non-league home match with 1A Sultan. La Conner was 0-1 in NW2B/1B play entering the week after falling 4-1 in a conference test at Friday Harbor on Oct. 1. Coach Mad...
A traumatic past can give way to a healthy future. That was the hopeful message shared with La Conner students by Swinomish Tribal Community members during annual Orange Shirt Day ceremonies at Landy James Gym Monday afternoon. Orange Shirt Day, which symbolizes truth and reconciliation, honors the experiences and raises awareness of those indigenous children who attended residential schools in North America. Dean Dan Jr., of Swinomish, who keynoted the La Conner program, shared the story of...
Lydia Grossglass went for the hat trick while teammates Angie Pena, Maicy Bowles and Lily Dougliss scored one goal each as the La Conner High School girls’ soccer team improved to 3-1 with a 6-0 shutout win over the 1A Nooksack Valley Junior Varsity at Whittaker Field last Friday. Pena and Bowles got the Braves on the scoreboard with back-to-back goals. Grossglass followed with three consecutive scores and Dougliss found the net in the second half to cap the La Conner offensive onslaught. “The girls had excellent communication,” La Conne...
In an up and down week, the La Conner High School volleyball team finished strong. The Braves (5-4 overall; 1-1 in league) rebounded from a tough 3-0 Sept. 24 home loss to NW2B/1B archrival Coupeville to defeat host Friday Harbor in straight sets last Friday. La Conner captured each set against the Wolverines by double digits, defeating Friday Harbor 25-10, 25-12, 25-13. La Conner head coach Pam Keller received solid contributions from her entire roster at Friday Harbor. Freshman Nora McCormick delivered a team-high 12 kills to go along with...
The Concrete Lions, with two state 11-man football titles to their credit, resembled a finely tuned machine in the eight-man grid ranks Friday night. That machine, unfortunately for the La Conner Braves, turned out to be a steam roller. Concrete rolled to an 80-26 home triumph over La Conner, which was playing just the third game in its inaugural eight-man season. The Braves (1-2) were coming off an impressive 60-0 shutout win over Vashon Island but found the Lions, who snapped a three-game losing streak, to be a different breed of cat in the...
Lydia Grossglass and Bailey Smith combined for three first-half goals and the La Conner High School girls' soccer team withstood a late Providence Classical Christian rally to post a 3-2 NW2B/1B triumph at Whittaker Field Friday afternoon. Smith delivered a goal 14 minutes into the contest to give La Conner an early lead. Grossglass then extended the hosts' advantage with two scores before intermission. A senior, Grossglass scored with 7:45 left in the opening half off a free kick by Angie Pena,...
The difference in enrollment between La Conner and Mount Vernon high schools is enormous. The difference between the two on the volleyball court – not so much. La Conner, a perennial state 2B power, played two close sets at 3A Mount Vernon Sept. 19 before falling in a hard-fought 3-0 non-conference pairing. The Braves (4-3), who were coming off straight-sets neutral site triumphs in Yakima over West Valley and DeSales, fought host Mount Vernon on near equal terms in the early going of their match. The Bulldogs edged La Conner 27-25 and 25-22 i...
The La Conner School District is making headlines this fall – in a good way. The strides its students have made improving math scores the last two years is the cover story in the current edition of the Washington State School Directors Association quarterly newsmagazine. President Susie Deyo announced at the close of the Sept. 23 board meeting that the district’s success implementing its new K-12 math curricula – along with several other supportive initiatives – is featured in the fall issue of Direct, the WSSDA publication. La Conner element...
The La Conner Braves had extra motivation to defeat Vashon Island in its football season home opener at Whittaker Field Friday night. It wasn’t just because the Braves had suffered a 64-24 loss to Pomeroy in their 2024 eight-man grid debut a week earlier. Returning home, La Conner players were joined on their sideline by celebrated motivational speaker Curt Marsh, the former University of Washington All-American and Los Angeles Raiders Super Bowl champion. He now resides in Shelter Bay. “What I liked a lot about tonight is how you played for...
Coach Maddie Huscher and her staff marveled at how well the La Conner High School girls’ soccer team communicated during preseason workouts a couple weeks ago. Now the La Conner coaches can’t say enough about how well their players are executing attacks in the 2024 campaign’s early going. The Braves opened non-conference action with twin romps in which they scored in double digits against both Muckleshoot Tribal School and Forest Ridge Sacred Heart. La Conner blanked Muckleshoot 11-0 and defeated Forest Ridge 11-2 last week in a pair of impre...
The start of volleyball season was a red-letter day for the La Conner High School volleyball program. The Braves, a perennial 2B state powerhouse, beat visiting Class 1A Blaine in the Sept. 10 season debut for both teams. La Conner, under second year head coach Pam Keller, edged the Borderites in four sets, 25-22, 16-25, 25-22, 26-24, before a supportive home crowd. Freshman Reese Bird was named La Conner’s Player of the Match. She led the way with eight kills, 17 assists, 28 digs, one block and a service ace. Several of her La Conner t...
Cassius Landworth of La Conner's Lakin Construction youth soccer team advances the ball during second half action of a match in Sedro-Woolley on Saturday. The La Conner booters won 3-1....
It was great weather for soccer at Whittaker Field last Thursday. Unfortunately, the host La Conner Braves couldn't weather the crisp passing and relentless attacks of Sea-Tac B power Auburn Adventist. The Falcons, coming off a 2023 campaign that saw them qualify for the state playoffs, posted a tidy 3-1 non-league triumph over La Conner before a large crowd that basked in sunshine and warm weather while taking in an often-physical match. Collisions and contact were frequent as players...
La Conner High School was already behind the eight-ball when the Braves headed to the Yakima Valley Friday to open its first full eight-man football schedule. That’s because the Pomeroy Pirates, La Conner’s Sept. 6 foe, was coming off a 9-2 campaign in 2023 during which the southeast Washington eight-man grid power posted beatdown wins of 90-0 over Tekoa-Rosalia and 76-0 against Dayton. The Pirates resumed their swashbuckling offensive style in the ’24 debut for both clubs, recording a 64-24 victory on a neutral site chosen to split travel time...
Communication was the key word when the La Conner High School girls' soccer team opened preseason workouts last week. The hope is that by season's end, the rebuilding Braves program will be the talk of the perennially tough NW2B League. "The feedback we're getting is that our communication on the field is much improved," second year head coach Maddie Huscher said. "We've really stepped up with that all over the field, on offense and defense." Huscher and assistant coaches Robert Hancock and...
Defense was its calling card a year ago. This season the La Conner High School boys' soccer team is counting on its best defense being a strong offense. "We'll be more focused on attacking," head coach Galen McKnight told the Weekly News Friday afternoon as his club wrapped up its first week of preseason workouts. "Last year we played a lot of close matches, with 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2-type scores," he said. "I think we can build on that but also play more aggressively on offense." One reason for the...
It was a back-to-work Monday morning this week for La Conner High School volleyball team players and coaches. After a busy summer of team camps and open gyms, head coach Pam Keller, assistant Kamea Luna and a roster led by lone senior Addie Wigal were eager to hit the Landy James Activity Court hardwood by 9 a.m. "We're very young this year," Keller said. She guided the Braves to a state tourney berth last year in her first season as head coach. "But this is a very coachable group," Keller...
Remember “Eight Is Enough,” the popular 1970s TV drama? It’s now the new mantra for La Conner High School football, at least for the next two seasons. Faced with declining enrollment as the smallest Class 2B school system in Washington, La Conner school officials opted following the 2023 season and a series of community meetings to downsize the team to eight players. The Braves will play an independent eight-man schedule this season and next. They will not be eligible for post-season action. Playoff spots are reserved for 1B schools. Durin...
Classes haven't started yet but two La Conner High School students already have homework. Emmalin Goodman and Kellie Cayou-Lockrem will be providing feedback to school board members on the district's new cell phone policy, their first task as the board's new student representatives. "We value your input," board member John Agen told the panel's student reps. "We'd like to have you be the most engaged student representatives we've ever had." Board President Susie Deyo said that rather than assig...
The annual Swinomish Back-to-School Bash, held as summer draws to a close, was again a cut above similar events held elsewhere. That was true both literally and figuratively. The three-hour Aug. 14 gathering at John K. Bob Ball Park had something for all student groups – school supplies, T-shirts and hoodies, general and specific campus and classroom information, school district calendars, snack foods, sno-cones and more. And there were free haircuts, provided by students from the Mount V...
Cell phones have their place. But starting this fall the La Conner Schools campus won’t be one of them. District administrators have rolled out a plan for the new school year that creates a cell phone free zone, a policy approved two years ago. School board members endorsed the plan – designed to assure fewer classroom distractions and greater student focus on academics – during their hour-long Aug. 12 meeting in the adminstrative building. “We’re not changing policy,” Board President Susie Deyo stressed. “We passed the policy in October of ’2...
Basketball has always been a big deal in La Conner. But in Spokane it's a really big deal. Bigger, in fact, than almost anywhere else. As has been the case every June since 1990, thousands of hoops players and enthusiasts crowded into downtown Spokane last weekend for the largest outdoor three-on-three basketball tournament in the world. La Conner wasn't left out. La Conner High School girls' basketball head coach Joe Harper entered a local third grade boys' team in the 2024 Spokane Hoopfest, a...
Tommy Murdock hasn't slowed down since capturing twin state hurdles titles in Yakima last month. A week after graduating from La Conner High School, Murdock competed in an elite national meet at historic Hayward Field at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Murdock, who collected five state gold medals as a La Conner hurdler, took part in the 2024 Nike Outdoor Nationals and USA Track & Field U20 Championships on the same track where the U.S. Olympic Trials will be held starting Friday. Hayward...
Departing La Conner Schools Superintendent Will Nelson, who is leaving after three years to accept a teaching post at Western Washington University, was among special honorees during the year-end Swinomish Education Dinner at John K. Bob Ball Park on June 13. Nelson received a ceremonial blanket representing warmth and protection as part of a program that also honored the first-ever cohort of Swinomish-trained teachers, the tribal community’s corps of classroom student advocates, Swinomish K-12 students and college graduates, and La Conner Sch...
Most Washington K-12 students failed to meet basic math and reading proficiency standards in recent years, according to a new report. The analysis from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that in 2022, 66% of Washington fourth graders were not proficient in reading and 72% of eighth graders were not proficient in math. A spokesperson for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction pointed to progress the state is making based on other measures and called into question “the methodology and the narrative being pushed by the Foundation i...
