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In a short season, the La Conner High football team went a long way. All the way, in fact, to the top of league standings. Not too bad for a group some thought would be continuing a rebuild under new head coach Jeff Scoma. Instead, the Braves raised the roof and clinched the NW2B championship Friday night with their fourth straight win, a convincing 41-0 shutout victory as La Conner showed its mastery of the Wing-T attack Scoma brought with him from Bellevue. With the triumph, the Braves finished the ’21 spring campaign with a 4-1 mark. Five L...
The two-time defending state champion La Conner high volleyball team made the most of a season shortened due to COVID-19 pandemic concerns. Not only did the Lady Braves play four matches in five days during the last week of the month-long campaign, but they did not drop a single set. While capturing the league title in an undefeated season, La Conner did not lose a set in any of its 10 NW2B matches. The Lady Braves put an exclamation point on their modified 2021 spring schedule Saturday afternoo...
The La Conner high boys’ soccer team closed out a shortened spring season with a win in their longest match of the campaign Friday. Andre Knudson clinched a 2-1 Braves home triumph over Grace Academy of Marysville with a goal in the shootout round to break a 1-1 tie following 80 minutes of action and two five-minute overtime sessions. Knudson was mobbed by his teammates, who rushed onto the field from their sideline following his game-winner,. Braves’ goalkeeper Elijah Porter also came up big in...
The La Conner-Mount Vernon Christian girls’ soccer match at Whittaker Field Friday afternoon was essentially over within 90 seconds when Lady Hurricane standout Caitlyn Vander Kooy scored the first of MVC’s 13 goals. But a shorthanded La Conner team, minus two injured starters and without any subs, played through the full 80 minutes to the final whistle. “This team has some heart,” said La Conner head coach Christian Warman, who had five eighth graders and a freshman on the field opposit...
In a season like no other, the two-time defending state champion La Conner High volleyball team continues to post familiar results. La Conner defeated NW2B rival Coupeville in straight sets on Senior Night at Landy James Gym Thursday, the team’s sixth win in as many outings. The hosts withstood a good start by Coupeville, which broke to a quick 2-1 lead in the opening set, to record a 25-12, 25-14, 25-15 triumph before a supportive home crowd. While Coupeville played well in stretches, the Lady Wolves had no answer for La Conner’s dominant play...
The La Conner High football team saved its best for last at Lummi Thursday night. The Braves (3-1) overcame a slow start to claim their third straight triumph, a 27-6 road victory under new head coach Jeff Scoma and using the Wing-T attack he brought to La Conner this year from the vaunted Bellevue High program. The convincing win at Lummi means La Conner can capture the spring NW2B grid crown by prevailing at Darrington Friday, the season finale for both clubs. Kickoff is 6 p.m. For those into comparative scores, Lummi defeated the Loggers...
The La Conner High football team hit the ground running at Concrete Friday night. Operating out of their new Wing-T set, the Braves topped 300 yards rushing and saw four different players score touchdowns as La Conner posted a convincing 48-14 NW2B triumph in the Lions’ Den. Hal Ikebe paced the Braves with three TDs. Cole Hagen found paydirt twice and Kali Adams and Alden Schnabel each recorded a touchdown for La Conner, which improved to 2-1 on the campaign. “It was a total team win,” first-year Braves head coach Jeff Scoma told the Weekl...
The La Conner High boys’ soccer team battled a stiff headwind at Whittaker Field last Tuesday. The Braves also dueled with a physical and veteran Mount Vernon Christian Hurricanes club that broke a scoreless tie with a pair of wind-aided second half goals, the latter of which came in the final minute of the contest. MVC recorded the tidy 2-0 victory on a beautiful sunlit but gusty afternoon. Coming off a season opening shutout win over Cedar Park Christian, La Conner was unable to take advantage...
The La Conner High football team was looking forward to avenging its 6-0 season opening overtime loss at Coupeville. Fortunately for the Braves, that opportunity came earlier than expected. And they made the most of it. The Braves blanked Coupeville 21-0 at home Saturday in a game that was moved up in the schedule mid-week due to Friday Harbor having suspended its athletics program because of increased COVID-19 test results in the San Juan Island School District. Friday Harbor was to have been La Conner’s foe last weekend. Coupeville was a...
The COVID-19 pandemic has scuttled post-season action, but the La Conner High volleyball team is playing like another state title is on the line. Lady Braves head coach Suzanne Marble, who has guided the program to five state crowns, would not have it any other way. The two-time defending state champions swept NW2B rivals Coupeville and Concrete in straight-set decisions last week. La Conner bested Coupeville 25-15, 25-7, 25-9 in a key road test last Tuesday against the former Class A Lady Wolves, who moved back to the NW2B ranks this year. It...
After not taking the court for 17 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the two-time defending state 2B champion La Conner High volleyball team needed less than an hour to defeat league rival Orcas Island in the season opening match for both schools Thursday afternoon at Landy James Gym. Waiting nearly a year and a half to play less than 60 minutes is not an ideal scenario, but La Conner is on a mission during its modified one-month spring campaign to make the best of a situation that is still a...
The La Conner and Coupeville high school football teams worked overtime Saturday night, but it was the host Wolves who cashed in with a hard fought 6-0 NW2B triumph in the season debut for both programs. Coupeville running back Ben Smith, who had been bottled up much of the contest by a stout La Conner defensive unit, scored the game’s lone touchdown with a one-yard blast to cap the Wolves’ sole possession of the extra session. The Braves, who had avoided key mistakes in regulation running out of their new Wing-T formation, fumbled on La Con...
Will Nelson is a new face in town. But it will not be long before his will be a familiar face. Nelson, chosen last Wednesday as the new superintendent of La Conner Schools, plans to be a visible administrator, interacting regularly with students, staff and the community at large. “I’m really passionate about the position,” Nelson, director of equity and student success at Arlington Public Schools and a member of the Blackfeet Nation, told board members during a rigorous interview process last...
The first pitch of the last season of youth baseball at historic Hedlin’s Ballfield has yet to be thrown, but game plans are already being developed for next year. At least in terms of securing a new sports venue in 2022. Spring practices have begun much as they have this time of year going back decades, but now prospective building lots for a planned new residential development are staked out behind the ballfield’s backstop and parallel to its first base line. These are subtle signs that the nearly two-acre Maple Avenue site is soon to be con...
The La Conner High track and field and softball teams made up for lost time in big ways last week. After having their entire 2020 schedules shelved by COVID-19 and losing two weeks this season due to positive virus test cases, the two local school sports programs wrapped up their shortened 2021 campaign with a flourish. The track teams competed twice last week, including their lone home meet, a Senior Day clash with NW2B rivals Mount Vernon Christian, Coupeville and Concrete on Wednesday that saw La Conner top both halves of the leaderboard....
They say 90 per cent of success is just showing up. The La Conner High baseball team, sidelined for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, reached the 90 per cent mark this spring with a rebuilt young roster loaded with eighth graders and freshmen. The next step for veteran co-coaches Jeremiah LeSourd and Andy Otis is to bring the team the remaining 10 per cent during what hopefully will be a full schedule next spring. The Braves dropped their final two games of a modified and shortened 2021 varsity season with conference losses last week to Darrington...
For the La Conner High baseball team, idle the past two seasons, progress is not always measured on the scoreboard. Take the Braves NW2B home clash with Orcas Island last Friday, for example. The Vikings posted a 20-6 triumph in six innings, but that does not reflect the strides that La Conner – with seven freshmen and two eighth graders on its roster – has made in three short weeks. The hosts, fueled by timely hitting, several catching gems and a strong start by pitcher Haydin Dinuis, held a 6-5 lead after four frames before...
Last Friday marked the first home baseball game for La Conner High in three years. But the youthful Braves, whose roster includes seven freshmen and two eighth graders, did not enjoy a total home field advantage. That is because La Conner was paired against NW2B rival Mount Vernon Christian, which had already played twice on the Braves’ diamond this spring. The Hurricanes, who for a third time brought a large entourage of fans, are using the La Conner field as their home venue this season u...
The award-winning La Conner High Knowledge Bowl program is used to having all the answers. And, true to form, not even 2020’a universal campus lockdowns imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has kept team members from participating at a high level. By using technology and collaborating with other knowledge bowlers across Washington state, the team has found a way to practice and compete despite the virus crisis, which forced schools to start the academic year with remote learning formats. La Conner’s Chronically Iliad entry, com...
They go in the books as a pair of double-digit losses, but the La Conner High baseball team’s setbacks at Friday Harbor and Coupeville last week represent a win-win situation of sorts for the Braves. The team is back between the chalk lines after not seeing action since 2018. It is also, so far, prevailing over COVID-19. La Conner was unable to field a baseball team in 2019 due to low numbers. The onset of the virus crisis last spring wiped out the 2020 baseball season. Thus, the Braves’ 27-...
Let the games begin. In fact, they already have. The La Conner High track teams swept a league meet at Coupeville on Friday. The school’s softball team hosted NW2B/1B rival Darrington Saturday afternoon, dropping a 25-3 verdict in four innings. La Conner’s golf teams traveled Monday to Grace Academy, while the Braves baseball program was scheduled at Friday Harbor yesterday. Those represented the first La Conner High sports action in nearly a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which closed campu...
La Conner High spring sports teams launched their 2021 campaign earlier than usual with practices starting Monday afternoon. Even so, they have some catching up to do. After all, the 2020 season was entirely wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. The school’s softball and baseball teams managed one scrimmage together in mid-March before campuses were closed statewide in response to the virus crisis. In years past, the first day of full spring workouts would have coincided with completion of the s...
Nearly a week after its staff was vaccinated against COVID-19, La Conner Schools received more good medicine Tuesday night. Initial election results posted on the Skagit County elections office website report district voters approved by a 970-374 margin a four-year, $4.04 million replacement levy that will fund school programs in five key areas through 2025. That is 72.2% for and 27.8% opposed. La Conner’s was one of three school districts asking for operations funding, with Concrete and M...
The La Conner School Board on Monday approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the school district and La Conner Education Association addressing requirements for returning to school during the COVID-19 pandemic. The agreement focuses on putting in place health screening, masking, social distancing and room cleaning and sanitizing standards to safely bring students and staff back to school. “This gives everybody some structure with which to work through the hybrid model,” interim sup...
La Conner students have done plenty of homework this year, due to the remote learning format adopted to curb spread of COVID-19. School officials have been loaded with homework, too. Their assignment: develop a plan to safely transition students to in-person instruction. A Feb. 1 start was part of the framework unanimously approved by school board members during a 75-minute Zoom meeting Monday night. La Conner Schools’ Director of Special Programs Andy Wheeler outlined the plan, which had been d...
