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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 2019)
C2 THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, OcTObER 19, 2019 Astoria hires Walsh as wrestling coach By GARY HENLEY The Astorian The Astoria High School wrestling program has a new head coach, with the recent hiring of Doug Walsh, a longtime wrestling coach in Nevada. Walsh replaces Nick Roberts as the Fishermen head coach. Most recently, Walsh was an assistant coach at Sparks High School in Nevada from 2014-2019. Before that, he served as the head coach at Sparks from 2001-2010. Married to Erica Walsh, head secretary at Astoria High School, the Walsh’s moved to the North Coast in July. The couple has three children: John (23), Erin (21) and Jillian (9). Doug Walsh was recently working as a seasonal park ranger at Fort Stevens State Park, after retiring as a teacher for 29 years in the Washoe County school dis- trict in Reno, Nevada. “We chose the area as our retirement home,” said Walsh, who was also the head track coach at Sparks from 2003-09. He has also coached golf, volleyball, basketball and soccer in the past. “My goals for AHS wrestling are to rebuild the program, introduce stu- dents to the sport of wres- tling, build a competitive program, and help students succeed in wrestling, school and life,” he said. Astoria athletic direc- tor Howard Rub said, “We feel very fortunate to secure someone of coach Walsh’s expertise. I am very impressed with his five-year plan for our program. “Obviously, we are going to miss coach Rob- erts, but we hit a home run by securing someone with coach Walsh’s experience and vision for our program.” The 2019-20 Astoria wrestling season begins Dec. 4 with the Knappa Invitational. PREP ROUNDUP GIRLS SOCCER Warrenton Volleyball The Warrenton girls volleyball team, the Coastal Range League champions for the second year in a row. Banks edges Astoria, 2-1 Two days after their first league win, an injury-plagued Astoria girls soccer team came up one goal short against No. 12-ranked Banks, 2-1, in a Cowapa League contest Thursday. On a cold, rainy day in Banks, the Lady Fish managed to keep the ball in the Braves’ half for the majority of the first half. Banks seized a few opportunities to break through the Fish’s backline, but couldn’t sneak the ball past Astoria goalkeeper Baylee McSwain. Meanwhile, the Lady Fish offense had several scoring opportunities, but failed to pocket one into the goal. After halftime, both teams pushed themselves in hopes of scoring. After an unlucky foul on Astoria, the Braves scored on a penalty kick into the corner of the net. Banks added a second goal with 10 minutes remaining. The Lady Fish scrambled to gain an advantage, and put in one goal by defender Brooklyn Zerangue with 30 sec- onds left. The Braves got the win, but Astoria coach Tim Fastabend said, “the girls worked ceaselessly on the field, and will be ready for their next game,” next Tuesday at home vs. Tillamook. In other Cowapa League action Thursday, Valley Catho- lic defeated Seaside, 4-0. VOLLEYBALL Vernonia sweeps past Knappa Sixth-ranked Vernonia — still with a chance of catching Portland Christian for a share of the Northwest League title — warmed up for a Saturday showdown with the Royals by beating Knappa Thursday night. Vernonia swept Knappa for the second time this season, 25-19, 25-16, 25-14. Knappa falls to 4-7 in league play, while Vernonia improves to 10-1, behind Portland Christian’s 11-0. Despite the loss, Knappa coach Jeff Kaul said his team “put up a great fight, and although Knappa lost the match in three games, the games were a blast to watch. I hope every- one that came tonight enjoyed them as much as I did.” Knappa lost Ava Skipper during the second set, but Cas- sidy Engblom “stepped in for Ava to keep the team alive, and Amanda Hellberg got the nod to sub in for Taylin (Regier) to finish the match,” Kaul said. “Both did a great job and worked hard in their positions.” Megan Hellberg had seven blocks and five kills, and Aiko Miller added 10 digs. “Of course you always want Senior Night to end in a win, but I was very happy with the effort out there tonight, and even though we did not get the win I felt that every player played as hard as they could to make Aiko and Sophia (Carlson’s) last home game a good one.” Astoria defeats Tillamook in five Astoria pulled even with Banks in the Cowapa League volleyball standings at 4-3, following a five-set win Thurs- day night at Tillamook. The Lady Fishermen lost the first set, but rallied to win the match, 20-25, 25-15, 25-23, 22-25, 15-11. Astoria improves to 2-1 in league matches that have gone five games. The Fishermen compete Saturday in a tournament at Marshfield, then finish the regular season Tuesday at home against Valley Catholic. — The Astorian PERFECT LEAGUE MARK FOR WARRENTON TEAM The Astorian he Warrenton Warriors finished off a perfect league season Thurs- day night, and can now — for the second year in a row — officially set their sights on the state tournament. Warrenton swept aside Rainier for the fourth time this season, 25-15, 25-21, 25-22, to end the league sea- son with an 8-0 record, 13-10 overall. It’s the first time since 1978 the War- riors have completed a perfect league season. The Warriors set the tone early in Thursday’s match, jumping out to an 8-1 lead in Game 1 behind the serv- ing of Nora Ayo and a few kills from Avyree Miethe. Rainier rallied and pulled even with Warrenton, but the Warriors countered with another long serving string from Leah Schiewe, who ultimately finished the first set with a backhand tap over the net for the final point. Warrenton had another strong night T Staci Miethe Chris Oseguera, father of Warrenton volleyball player Natalie Oseguera. from the service line, hitting 90% of their serves with 20 aces. Stevey Berry had her sixth straight match serving 100% (11-for-11 with three aces). Miethe was 16-of-17 with five aces (including two of the last three points in Game 3). Warrenton coach Staci Miethe said “Natalie Oseguera — who usually doesn’t serve — did for Senior Night and was 5-for-5 with three aces.” The Warriors were wearing blue jer- seys for Oseguera’s father. “Chris (Oseguera) has incurable kidney disease and is on the national transplant list,” Miethe said. “He begins dialysis soon. This was for him.” Avyree Miethe led Warrenton’s offense with eight kills and Schiewe (17-for-17 on attacks) and Mia McFad- den each had five kills. Melia Kapua “played great defense as usual, with 10 digs and three saves,” coach Miethe said. “She also had a per- fect hitting night out of the back row and added two kills.” Next up, the Warriors host the win- ner of this weekend’s district tourna- ment on Tuesday. NBA’s West race will be incredibly good this season By TIM REYNOLDS Associated Press Stephen Curry knew ros- ter change was inevitable. That being said, Curry and the Golden State War- riors aren’t changing their expectations. The five-time defending Western Conference cham- pions aren’t the popular pick to represent their side of the league in this season’s NBA Finals, understandable after losing the likes of Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala. But Curry said the Warriors will strive to remain what they’ve been over the last half-decade — “a team that’s feared across the league.” “Look at every era of basketball,” Curry said. “For a team to sustain this type of level of play and this greatness, it doesn’t happen that often. And when you need to retool, it may look different, but the great teams, great players figure it out as they go.” Thing is, there are so many great players — and potentially great teams — in the West this season. The Los Angeles Clip- pers are the prohibitive favor- ite to win the NBA title, at least according to oddsmak- ers in Las Vegas, after land- ing Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. The Los Angeles Lak- ers still have LeB- ron James, and added Anthony Davis. Hous- ton reunited James Harden with Russell Westbrook. Denver and Utah bring back strong cores. Portland might have the league’s best backcourt. “You just can’t take it for granted,” Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti said. “It’s really, really hard to win games in the NBA, especially the Western Con- ference, the way it is now.” Maybe harder than ever. “We want to maintain the culture that we’ve built, but we want to make sure our players are put in the best position to succeed, and the last four years we pretty much knew exactly what that meant,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “We don’t really know what it means this year. That’s why we have a lot of work ahead, but it’s exciting. I’m looking forward to it.” Houston coach Mike D’Antoni said the West will be great for fans and the league — not so much for coaches, players and owners. “Somebody is probably going to come in ninth and get fired when they shouldn’t because they did a great job,” D’Antoni said. “But that’s the way it is.” CROSS-COUNTRY Warrenton runs strong in Longview meet The Astorian The Warrenton cross-coun- try team took part in a five- school meet Wednesday at Lake Sacajawea in Longview, Washington. Hosted by R.A. Long, the Warriors were one of two Oregon schools competing, along with Rainier. Woodland won the boys team title with 30 points, ahead of Mark Morris, SCOREBOARD PREP SPORTS SCHEDULE SATURDAY Volleyball — Astoria at Marshfield tournament, TBA; Seaside at Corbett tournament, TBA Cross-Country — Astoria at Warner Pacific Classic, TBA R.A. Long, Rainier and Warrenton. R.A. Long was the top girls team, ahead of Wood- land and Warrenton. The Warriors still man- aged a few highlights, as sophomore Abigail Miller finished third individually in the girls race, running the 5,000 meters in 22 min- utes, 45 seconds (her per- sonal record and fourth-fast- est time in school history). Teammate Hayleigh Anglim was ninth in 24:32. On the boys side, senior Kale Moss was Warren- ton’s top runner, finishing 13th in 18:23, his PR and the third-fastest 5,000 time in school history, behind Israel Vasquez (2007) and Luke Liljenwall (2016). Warrenton Cross-Country Warrenton runner Kale Moss, on his way to the third-fastest 5,000-meter time in school history.