Thursday, September 24, 2009 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Page C-1

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Sports&OutdoorsJournal

All five rows of the bleachers were packed.

A few pickup trucks and a dozen camp chairs dotted the home sideline.

Burgers were heating up inside the concessions stand.

All the ingredients were in place for the Mary M. Knight football home open-er on Saturday afternoon in Matlock.

Even Mother Nature cooperated, as rays of sun beamed down on the 100 or so fans.

The green-clad Owls team took the field for a

second straight year after a four-year hiatus from 2004 to 2007.

Across the field, the boys from King’s Way, a

private school near Van-couver, looked bigger and stronger.

They were.As the Owls struggled

to contain the Knights, the MMK faithful never wa-vered.

The Owl cheerleaders kept the fans in the game, even when it was slipping away from the hometown boys.

Near the end of the third quarter, the eight-man non-conference game was called due to the “mercy rule” after King’s Way increased the lead to 46-0.

The Owls hustled back to the sideline as their coaches shouted, “Keep your heads up boys.”

The game of football manifests itself in unique ways each week during fall across this country.

The previous night in Issaquah, Oaks Christian High School, a California team that features the sons of Wayne Gretzky, Will Smith and Joe Montana, edged out Skyline in a na-tionally televised game.

The star-studded contest garnered media attention all week and ESPN’s cam-eras were focused on the celebrity dads on the side-line.

And in Seattle, the Washington Huskies pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the school’s history, up-ending No. 3 USC.

In this tiny corner of Ma-son County, it’s not always about the team’s record, the result or the hype.

No, there weren’t any ce-lebrity sightings at MMK’s field on Saturday.

It’s the community that makes this brand of football special.

“This is great out here. We have community sup-port like no other. Win or lose, they are out here sup-porting the Owls and we appreciate them 110 per-cent,” Owl head coach Eric Smith said after delivering a post-game talk to his young squad.

Oh, and there is one oth-er reason the Owls receive the community support.

“It doesn’t hurt that we have some of the best burg-ers around,” Smith said. “People show up for those, too.”

Sports editor Chris West can be reached at 426-4412 or at chris@masoncounty.

Support for Owls shows in opener

CHRIS WEST

By DEAN SIEMONFans in Mason County were treat-

ed to a bragging-rights game last Fri-day night and the Highclimbers came away with a big victory over North Mason, 7-0.

Shelton (2-3) had plenty of scor-ing opportunities throughout, with 12 shots on goal. Shelton also had six corner kicks, scoring three goals with those chances. North Mason (0-4-1) head coach Bob Meeden talked about how the game at Highclimber Stadium was more of a practice after playing hard against Stadium the previous night.

“We were here for fun,” Meeden said. “Tonight was a chance for younger players to get a chance to play. Plus, the starters learned what

it’s like to sit on the sidelines.” “In reality, the score didn’t really

matter,” Meeden said. “They didn’t give up.”

For Shelton, some of their younger players were able to step up in a big way. Freshman Kaitlyn Dean scored two unassisted goals in the game, in-cluding one off a corner kick late in the first half to make the score 4-0.

Sophomore Allison Hunter came from the junior varsity team and scored two goals in the second half.

Shelton soccer tops North Mason, 7-0

Shelton soccer players, from left, Megan Lund, Tara Ramsey and Oak Schuetz celebrate Shelton’s first goal of Friday night’s match.

Journal photo by Greg Skinner

By DEAN SIEMONDuring a senior year, an athlete

will look to enjoy as much of his sport as possible, because it could be his last chance to represent his school and town.

For one of Shelton’s senior foot-ball players, it is more important to enjoy the senior year after miss-ing almost two seasons.

Senior lineman Jacob Holbrook was born with only one kidney. In fact, Holbrook only learned of the missing kidney during his sopho-more year after the season opener in September 2007.

I went 16 years of my life not knowing that I only had one kid-ney,” Holbrook said. “When you’re a baby, for some reason, they don’t

check if you have both of your kid-neys.”

When seeing doctors for an in-jury, it was discovered that his lone kidney was suffering from a hematoma, a blood clot that occurs from the bleeding of blood vessels.

Holbrook underwent a num-ber of surgeries that took place between September 2007 and De-

cember 2008.“They kept thinking that they

could drain the blood out, think-ing that would help it,” Holbrook said.

“Eventually they had to go up through my leg and up a main ar-tery and dropped some beads.”

Journal photo by Greg Skinner

Senior lineman Jacob Holbrook is savoring every minute of this fall after missing time the last two seasons.

SHELTON FOOTBALL

ANOTHER CHANCE TO PLAYSenior lineman back on the field after medical issues put him on the sideline

Olympia swims past Shelton

Journal photo by Greg Skinner

Katherine Myers competes in the 200 individual medley against Olympia on Tuesday afternoon.

INSIDE: SHELTON FALLS TO SOUTH KITSAP, HOSTS BONNEY LAKE AT HOME ON FRIDAY. SEE PAGE C-5

By DEAN SIEMONShelton girls swimming suffered

another loss, but there were some positives that could be drawn with winning three of the 11 events at the home meet at the Shelton High School swimming pool against Nar-rows League rival Olympia, who won 113-56.

Senior Kathryn Myers won two individual races, with good runs in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:32.25 and the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:17.48. She also helped the Highclimbers earn the victory with Sarah Myers, Sydney Gaa and Emma Pridmore in the 400 freestyle relay with a time of 4:20.78.

“She’s been our most consistent

performer,” Shelton coach Chad Youngquist said. “Those were good swims.”

After just missing state qualifying last season, Youngquist has set the bar higher for senior swimmer Kath-ryn Myers.

“I anticipate that she’ll make it this year,” Youngquist said.

The Highclimbers also took three second-place finishes. The team of Sara Meyers, Kathryn Myers, Kylie Cochran and Kelsey Frazer finished with a time of 2:15.78 in the 200-yard medley relay. In the 100-yard free-style, Sabrina McGlothlin finished with a time of 1:03.84, which was less than one second from the first-place time.

See Soccer on page C-5

See Chance on page C-5

See Swims on page C-5