COMMUNITYs s

The Issaquah Press

�Section

C WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2012

MOVING ONTiger Mountain Community High School celebrates the

graduates’ accomplishments from the class of 2012

Above, Audrey Johnson listens to her faculty testimonial. She received scholar-ships from the Kiwanis Club of Issaquah, Issaquah Women’s Club, Windermere Foundation and Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce, was Rotary Club of Issaquah student of the year and received an early acceptance merit scholarship from Northwest College of Art & Design.

At left, Kelli Korenek receives her diploma and a chuckle from outgoing longtime Tiger Mountain Community High School Principal Ed Marcoe.

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL JOHNSON /NEW ERA PHOTOGRAPHY

Eric Garcia receives his diploma and handshake from Principal Ed Marcoe.

The 28 Tiger Mountain graduating seniors toss their mor-tarboards in the air at the conclusion of their June 8 commencement ceremony on campus.

Erin Andrzejczyk, Kaylene Benak and Carina Aguilar (from left) arrive onstage in a light rain during the processional march.

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Cortez Ethridge (left) and Julianna Bingham share the duty of making stu-dent speeches to their classmates, friends, family members and faculty.

Mayra Lupercio picks up her diploma and gets her congratulations from Principal Ed Marcoe while wearing a pair of boots.

Graduating senior Cortez

Ethridge shares a hug with

teacher Joy Allison after

she reads his testimonial dur-

ing the Tiger Mountain

Community High School

class of 2012 commencement.

Erin Andrzejczyk receives the gift

of a chef’s jacket for her effort and

achievements from culinary

instructor Eric Sutherland.

SPORTSs s

The Issaquah Press

�Wednesday, June 20, 2012Page C4

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By Matt CarstensIssaquah Press reporter

With their season on the line in a loser-out playoff game in the KingCo tournament, the 2003 Liberty Patriots knew they something had to give.

After being held in check for six innings, Liberty entered the dugout in the top of the seventh down 2-0. Fed up with the effort, third basemen Sean Webster entered the dugout with a message.

“I don’t want the season to be over,” he said.Former Liberty ace and current San Francisco

Giants star Tim Lincecum, who was in Seattle last weekend to pitch his first game against the Mari-ners at Safeco Field, said he knew from that point on that this team had something special.

“You could just see the relentlessness, the never-give-up thing,” Lincecum said in an interview at Safeco the day before the game. “I wasn’t really a part of the game at that point, I wasn’t a position player, I was just a pitcher, so that game I was pretty much watching at that point. And to see us score 10 runs in that last inning and win the tour-nament, and then go on and play against Yelm in the quarterfinals.”

‘We could win this thing’Finishing fourth in the KingCo Conference that

year, Liberty wasn’t exactly a favorite going into the state tournament, but they knew with a pitcher like Lincecum, nicknamed The Freak, anything was possible.

Current Liberty softball coach Brian Hartman was an assistant coach on the ’03 baseball team and re-called the moment that the staff realized that the team had a realistic shot to make a run at the state title.

While hanging around with the other coaches right after winning the KingCo tournament, the group looked ahead to the next few weeks. They quickly realized with the way the state tournament was set up, they had more than a fighting chance.

“So we were like, ‘Yeah, we could win this thing!’” Hartman said in a phone interview last week. “Tim’s going to win one game for us, we just got to figure out how to win the other one that weekend. So having him really set us up for that run, and that’s exactly what happened.”

The Washington State Chapter of U.S. Lacrosse announced June 6 that 14 high school student-ath-letes, including lacrosse players from Issaquah High School, in Washington have been named to the 2012 U.S. Lacrosse All-Ameri-can team.

The selections mark the first time since the awards were first given in Washington in 1987 that so many student-athletes have been named All-American or All-American Honorable Mention in a single year.

Local selections include senior midfielders Ben Director and Kole Lindor, from Issaquah High, as well as student athletes from girls varsity state champion Bainbridge High School, Boys Division I state champion Bellevue High School, Mercer Island High School and the Lakeside School. Schools with one player selected include Archbishop Mur-phy High School, Lake Washington High School and Redmond High School.

Student-ath-letes named to the U.S. Lacrosse All-American Team are considered the best high school lacrosse play-ers in the United States.

To be honored, student-athletes must be an All-State selection, must be in good standing at his or her school and must exhibit sportsmanship on and off the field.

Washington recipients are se-lected by a state committee made up of varsity coaches from the state as assigned by U.S. Lacrosse.

Since 1987, 90 student-athletes from Washington state (58 boys and 32 girls) have been named All-American or All-American Honorable Mention by U.S. La-crosse.

Washington has experienced double-digit annual growth throughout the past decade, ac-cording to the Washington state chapter of U.S. Lacrosse.

With a 34-year local history, 157 individual boys and girls high school teams are available to stu-dents attending nearly 200 WIAA schools across the state.

Governed by the Washington High School Boys Lacrosse As-sociation and the Washington Schoolgirls Lacrosse Association, the sport is played during the spring season and capped by an-nual boys and girls state champi-onships in late May.

By Lillian TuckerIssaquah Press reporter

Listening to a group of local sophomore boys discuss pack-ing an Xbox into their carry-on, you probably wouldn’t guess they were about to hop a plane for the Junior National Rowing Champi-onships. But that is exactly where several local rowers were headed June 5.

“I’m feeling bouncy,” Sam Go-ertz said. “I’m just excited.”

The sophomore at Issaquah High School belongs to the Sam-mamish Rowing Association and occupies the stroke seat on the Men’s Lightweight Eight team, which was among the asso-ciation’s four junior crews that competed June 8-10 at the Junior

National Championships in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Also competing in Tennessee were Karina Yalcin, a junior at Issaquah High, and Ellie Place, a 2011 graduate of Issaquah High, who both row as members of the Women’s Varsity Eight team.

Goertz and his team members gladly admit they like to joke around, but when crunch time comes, they said, the team pulls it together.

“Going to nationals, I’ve had that goal for the last three years,” said coxswain Gina Day, a senior at Skyline High School.

While she has participated in crew for more than three and a half years, this was the first year that she has directed Men’s Light-weight Eight team.

“I’m like a football coach on wa-ter — I yell, steer and fix all their little mistakes,” she said. “Keep-ing them focused is the biggest challenge.”

Nationals didn’t come onto the team’s radar, said crewmember Ben Yuse, a sophomore at East-lake, until after a few local regat-tas earlier in the spring.

“We proved, just barely, that we are the fastest team in the North-west,” said Yuse, referring to the April 27-29 Brentwood Regatta on Vancouver Island.

That was a good weekend for the club, which had 14 first-place finishes, including one by the lightweight boy’s team when

Issaquah lacrosse

midfielders named All American

ON THE WEBView a his-torical list of All-American selections in Washington at www.wash-ingtonhslax.com/history/awards-and-records. Learn more about lacrosse in Washington at www.washing-tonhslax.com.

CONTRIBUTED BY SAMMAMISH ROWING ASSOCIATION

The Men’s Lightweight Eight, rowing in the water at Melton Hill Lake in Tennessee, include coxswain Gina Day, Sam Goertz, Matt Essig, Brennan Lewis, Johannes Gees, Andrew Wisegarver, Sean Allen, Max Antono and Ben Yuse. They took eighth at the U.S. Rowing Youth National Championships on June 10.

Rowers may be kidsters, but they’re serious about national championship

See ROWERS, Page C5

Tim Lincecum makes his pitching debut at

Safeco Field nine years after Liberty’s state title

Return of the

Freakshow

See LINCECUM, Page C5

Above, Kent Kirk, 76, a Portland resident, Santa Rosa, Calif., native and lifelong Giants fan, wears a Tim Lincecum jersey while watching warmup and batting practice at Safeco Field before Lincecum’s first start against the Mariners. At left, Tami Veralund, of Seattle, waves Tim Lincecum’s uniform number in the stands as he pitches at Safeco Field. ‘I never cared about the game until I saw him in 2010,’ she said. ‘He got me interested in baseball ‘cause he’s so hot!’

Above, Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants Cy Young award-winning pitcher and former Liberty High School star, makes his pitching debut at Safeco Field June 16. At left, he pitches to the Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki, getting him to line out to first base during the third inning of the interleague matchup. The Mariners went on to win the game, 7-4.

PHOTOS BY GREG FARRAR