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What’s new is old, and what’s old is new. That pretty sums up the pre-season identity of the La Conner High football team as it prepares for what should be a more balanced NW2B title chase. The Braves, who have made six straight post-season appearances, dominated league play a year ago while compiling a 10-2 overall mark, losing only to the two top-ranked teams in the state, both by close margins. But now the La Conner program must reshuffle its roster to offset key departures. Most notable is All-State running back Budda Luna, the Skagit are...
While growing up in La Conner, John Agen had a passion for football. His son’s game plan was slightly different. It veered to futbol. Steven Agen began getting his kicks as a 12-year-old die-hard Seattle Sounders fan. Now, almost a decade later, he has established a strong foothold in the Pacific Northwest’s soccer media industry. Pretty impressive, no matter how you spell it. “He’s just a junior at the University of Washington,” says John, a polished pocket passer during his days at La Conner High, “and he’s already written a book and owns...
The Seattle Storm fell four points short in its WNBA matinee matchup with the Connecticut Sun at Seattle’s Key Arena last week. But the pro team’s young La Conner fans felt like winners afterward nonetheless. Two dozen local kids were treated to courtside seats at the marquee women’s hoop clash—the Sun, after all, sits atop the league’s Eastern Conference standings—as part of a special Swinomish Youth Center day trip. The La Conner area group, composed mostly of elementary and mid...
New Jersey’s governor got burned going to the beach. Not so La Conner sand volleyball duos. Nine local players had plenty of fun in the sun, competing at the annual Burlington Beach Bash Tournament last weekend, with La Conner entries claiming top honors in the event’s Gold and Silver divisions. The Gold standard was set by middle schoolers Ellie Marble and Rachel Cram, who topped a field composed primarily of high school players. Anna Jane Thulen and Maya Masonholder won the silver div...
Short-handed La Conner was able to strong-arm its share of foes at summer basketball camp in Soap Lake. A makeshift Braves lineup won five games while building team chemistry going forward during a week-long stay in Eastern Washington. La Conner was hobbled – both literally and figuratively – when Harley Hulbert re-aggravated a knee injury and Scottie Miller and Trey Casey were delayed in arriving due to a crab season opening. To further complicate matters, Miller, an inside scoring presence, saw limited court time due to a...
La Conner seventh grader, Delaney Cobbs, has been wrestling competitively for over 6 years. That’s half your life when you are only 12 years old. Delaney’s long list of athletic accomplishments in that six years is very impressive considering her age. Earlier this month, Delaney took 3rd place at the Women’s Nationals Tournament in Tyler, Texas. Delaney competed in the 137-pound weight class Freestyle division. This tournament is a US National Team qualifying tournament, which means all high...
The space race might be a thing of the past, but not Luna landings. La Conner High senior Budda Luna landed atop the leaderboard in three different jumping events at the 2B Bi-District track and field championships in Shoreline on Saturday. Luna mined gold in the boys’ high jump, 6’-0”, long jump, 21’-2”, and triple jump, 41’-9½, as the Braves eased to the Bi-District team title by a 143.5-66 margin over runner-up Friday Harbor. Seattle Lutheran placed third with 62.5 points. On the girls’ side, it was much the same story. La Conner was...
They say it’s tough to beat the same team three times in a season. That means the La Conner High Lady Braves hope four times is a definite impossibility. La Conner, losers of three straight games to Concrete – though once by a mere 6-5 margin – open District softball play at Stanwood Friday afternoon in a loser-out match opposite the Lady Lions. The winner between La Conner and Concrete at 3:30 p.m. will turn around and face the Friday Harbor-Orcas victor with a State Tournament b...
The La Conner High girls’ track team made fast work of the five-school NW2B/1B League Championships, while the runner-up Braves were outstanding in the field. As in field events. By sweeping almost all the meet’s field events, the La Conner boys clinched second place on the leaderboard. The Lady Braves, meanwhile, didn’t quite run away with the league crown. But their strong corps of sprinters helped La Conner edge Mount Vernon Christian 140-137 for the team title during trials held Wednesday at Whittaker Field. Mount Vernon Christian was the b...
The La Conner High track team stayed in the running at the Skagit County Championships last week in Anacortes. Well in the running, at that. While one of the smaller enrollment schools at Rice Field, La Conner High proved long on talent during the intense two-day event. Consider that La Conner sprinter Emma Lee, hurdler Sofie Thulen and jumper Matty Lagerwey were double gold medalists on the girls’ side of the County Meet, which saw the Lady Braves place a strong third in the team standings—ahead of Mount Vernon High, among others. T...
A pair of upset bids weren’t in the cards for the La Conner High softball team last week. So Lady Braves head coach Loran James decided to shuffle the deck – or, rather, the La Conner lineup – a bit. James made wholesale defensive changes in a 19-9 non-league setback at 1A Coupeville on Thursday, prepping his young club for this week’s slate of four key NW2B contests. The Lady Braves were scheduled to play a doubleheader at Concrete Tuesday before returning home for an April 24 twi...
The La Conner High Lady Braves seem to be peaking at the right time. And not just because they spent Saturday in the eastern Cascade foothills. It was what they did at the annual Cashmere Invitational, an elite track-and-field event that regularly draws top small and mid-size school entries from around the state, that shows how lofty the expectations can be for La Conner at the upcoming Skagit County Meet. The Lady Braves, led by gold medalists Emma Lee, Sofie Thulen, and Matty Lagerwey, placed...
La Conner High track team members did their Civic duty on Saturday. As in taking part in the elite Birger Solberg Invitational at Civic Stadium in Bellingham, one of only two high school meets in Washington state that stages the iconic steeplechase event. The grueling 2,000 meter contest challenges entrants with a series of obstacles, most notably a water hazard. And, in the case of Civic Stadium, a water hazard stocked with goldfish. La Conner’s Budda Luna, a multi-sport standout for the Braves, went fishing for gold of another sort when he j...
La Conner High track teams ran with the big dogs last week. The Braves, in fact, nearly matched the Mount Vernon High Bulldogs stride-for-stride in their half of the annual Clash of the Conferences Meet at Whittaker Field on Friday. The 4A Bulldogs nipped La Conner 80-76 for fourth place in the boys’ team standings. Burlington-Edison placed first with a 134.5 total. On the girls’ side, La Conner edged 2A Sedro-Woolley 94-89.5 for fourth place honors. Stanwood compiled 141 points to win the tea...
A La Conner High track coach teaches her charges how to hit the ground running. Yvonne Naughton, who works with the school’s sprinters and jumpers, is an accomplished ultra-runner, who has qualified for the Irish 24-hour team that will compete at the World Championships in Belfast in July. Her journey has been a long one on several levels. “I grew up in Ireland, taking part in track from about the age of six,” says Naughton, now nearly 40, though she sports a far more youthful appearance. “As a...
Ancient history is helping write the next chapter in the life of a La Conner High senior. Brady Nelson, a 5’-11” three-sport standout for the Braves, signed a National Letter of Intent with Everett Community College to compete in the javelin and high jump for the Trojans next year. The versatile Nelson might also train as a decathlete. All are events based on military skills considered essential in ancient Troy. Which seems an ideal fit for the battle-tested — at least in athletic ter...
The La Conner High track teams got out of the blocks in style last week. The Braves had a literal field day in their season home debut, while the Lady Braves made mad dashes that nearly had them sitting atop an eight-school field. The La Conner boys, with Kaden Murdock and Brady Nelson winning two field events apiece, edged Mount Vernon Christian 129-114 for the team title. Grace Academy, with 96 points, finished third. The Lady Braves, meanwhile, placed a close second to Mount Vernon...
When a basketball team scores 120 points, it’s easy for numbers to get lost on the stat sheet. Not so in the case of La Conner High senior Nakiya Edwards, who played a standout role in the 2B team’s 120-68 rout of its 1B opposite number at King’s High School in Edmonds on Saturday. Edwards filled the stat line for the victors in the annual Washington State Girls Basketball Coaches Association Senior All-State Game. Edwards recorded seven points, three rebounds, a steal, and an assist while...
La Conner’s Girls Basketball team was knocked out of the state finals with a narrow win by Walla Walla Academy. Here, La Conner’s Ashley Wilkins, No. 22, makes a successful shot, with Matty Lagerwey, No. 32, and Justine Benson, No. 20, ready to spring into action. – Photo by Don Coyote...
The La Conner High Lady Braves have put together several nice post-season runs in recent years. But don’t look for the local hoop program to hit the finish line anytime soon. If anything, La Conner girls’ basketball — which has treated fans to clutch play on several levels this year — looks to be gearing up for repeated State title drives well into the future. The La Conner eighth-grade girls’ team finished its season last week with a big win over previously unbeaten Conway. With that triumph, the La Conner girls finished the campa...
One more win means one more trip to Spokane for the La Conner High Lady Braves. But a loss Saturday night to Walla Walla Valley Academy would cancel any travel plans for the 20-2 Lady Braves, who played so well at last week’s District Tournament in Sedro-Woolley that not even a wing and a prayer could defeat them. Just ask the Auburn Adventist Lady Falcons. La Conner routed Auburn 62-42 in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score indicates. The Lady Braves led at one point by 36 points before taking the foot off the pedal. “We came out f...
Call it déjà vu on steroids. The La Conner Braves must defeat a Friday Harbor team that defeated them by 31 points earlier in the season. They’ve done that once. Now they have to do it again. La Conner squares off once more against Friday Harbor tomorrow afternoon, Thursday, in Sedro-Woolley, less than two weeks after closing out regular season play with a dramatic 52-49 win over the Wolverines at Landy James Gym. This time it will be in a District Tournament elimination round, starting at 4:15 p.m. Friday Harbor routed La C...
Nearly three months later, the La Conner High girls’ basketball team finds itself back where it started. The Lady Braves face Auburn Adventist — an early season non-league foe — in District Tournament action tonight, Wednesday, in Sedro-Woolley. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. “We beat them 49-33 earlier in the year,” La Conner head coach Scott Novak said Sunday of the Lady Falcons, “but the game was a lot closer than the final score indicates.” Indeed it was. La Conner led by single digits before finishing with a flurry in the final sta...
The Husky pep band wasn’t alone producing positive notes Friday night. So, too, did the La Conner High boys’ basketball team. The Braves closed out NW2B action with an unlikely 52-49 home win over Friday Harbor, thus avenging an earlier 31-point blowout loss to the Wolverines. You could say turnabout is fair play. But, in La Conner’s case, it was more about turnovers than anything else. The Braves committed just 10 in the rematch. They were guilty of 26 such miscues in the earlier meeting on the...
They made fast work of the NW2B girls’ hoop schedule. But unfinished business awaits the La Conner High Lady Braves. Such as a very likely turnaround rematch with Friday Harbor, the conference foe whom La Conner edged 33-27 in its regular season finale at Landy James Gym Friday night. The Lady Braves are poised to face the winner between Friday Harbor and Seattle Lutheran in their District Tournament opener here on Feb. 10. Since the Lady Wolverines defeated Seattle Lutheran by a lopsided m...
