Beach volleyball: Olympics tonight, Alki tomorrow
In the green top, that’s Alki resident Bri Murray, one of the winners at last summer’s first-ever EVP Pro Beach Volleyball tour stop on her home beach – and she (with teammate Wendy Stammer from Oregon) will try to do it again when the tour returns tomorrow. (Great timing, with beach volleyball in the spotlight at the Beijing Games!) WSB is a co-sponsor of the daylong event — and the finals are being recorded by Comcast again this year, so if you’re there by 3, you’re welcome to be in the official TV audience – the women’s finals are expected around 3, the men’s finals around 4:30 (last year’s winning men’s team also featured a local star, Alki resident Chris Hannemann, and he’ll be playing tomorrow too). Here’s the official news release with full details about tomorrow’s event, which starts bright and early:Read More
Sealth striping sighting, plus a fence update of sorts
As part of the same school district ballot measure (BEX III) that raised money for projects including the Denny/Sealth combined campus, the Southwest Athletic Complex across from Chief Sealth is getting new turf. Didn’t get to share this pic with you till now, but we spotted striping work being done on Thursday afternoon. On a related note regarding the athletic complex – as we reported earlier this week, there was a suggestion at Tuesday night’s Westwood Neighborhood Council meeting that the perpetual inaccessibility of the complex because of locked fencing – a hindrance in particular for people trying to walk between Thistle and Trenton, from the school zone to Westwood Village — might be changeable. West Seattle school-board rep Steve Sundquist said he’d check into it. We e-mailed him to ask if he’d gotten anywhere with that, and he replied: “I have not yet had a chance to chase this one down. My guess is that the most productive conversations about the fencing will occur this fall as part of the larger site development planning effort.” (Read more about that in our report about the WNC meeting.)
New teen baseball team coming up to bat in West Seattle
Introducing – the Puget Sound Stars Baseball Club (13U)! We heard from Brian Chase, who says, “My son just finished with West Seattle Little League and some of us decided to start a Sandy Koufax Select 13U Baseball Team here in West Seattle. We have many WSLL & Bronco kids on the team but have a few spots open for the 2009 season.” If you know a player who might want to go for one of those spots, tryouts are a week from tomorrow, 6-8 pm 8/20 — for more details including location, e-mail Brian by clicking here.
West Seattle High School star goes with Huskies
We started seeing links about this yesterday but somehow neglected to mention it here till we got a nudge – one of West Seattle High School‘s better-known alums just told us it’s a big deal, so we’ll believe him: One of the first three University of Washington Huskies football-player commitments for the 2009 group of recruits is Aaron Grymes from WSHS. Here’s dawgman.com coverage via Scout; here’s his profile. In this blog post, he told the Times that playing for UW “has been my dream since I was little.”
West Seattle Little League All-Stars update: 11-12s win!
Thanks to Cami for another update (and the photo) – that cheering you heard from Bar-S Playfield over Alki Point tonight was the sound of the West Seattle Little League 11-12 All-Stars winning the championship:
West Seattle Little League’s Majors (11-12) All-Star team defeated the South Highline Nationals 6-4 tonight at Bar-S and clinched the District 7 championship! The game included a grand slam homerun by West Seattle’s Matt Weller in the bottom of the second inning.
The team will now advance to the Little League 11-12 state tournament in Mill Creek on July 19th. For the first time ever, West Seattle Little League swept the District 7 all-stars tournaments winning the 9-10, 10-11 and the 11-12 divisions. All three teams were undefeated! For more information, please visit www.westseattlelittleleague.com.
West Seattle Little League championship game tonight
Even more fun in the Alki area tonight, besides the art reception/show (5-8 pm) at the Bathhouse and general pre-holiday excitement – Cami from West Seattle Little League reports:
The 11-12 All-Stars team plays tonight at Bar-S field [map] at 6 pm against the South Highline Nationals. This is the Championship game for this tournament. If WSLL loses, a game will be needed tomorrow at 10 am to determine the champion. Go WestSide!
West Seattle sports: Little League champs; recordsetting lifter
Thanks to Cami for those photos and the news that the West Seattle Little League All-Stars teams shown in them are now the district champs:
West Seattle Little League’s 9-10 and 10-11 All-Star teams both beat South Highline Nationals teams in championship games on Saturday! The 9-10 All-Stars will advance to the state tournament in Vancouver, WA on July 19th and the 10-11 All-Stars will be playing in Auburn, WA, also on July 19th. Both teams were undefeated in play in the District 7 Tournament.
Currently, WSLL is hosting the District 7 Majors (11-12) tournament at Bar-S Field. West Seattle beat PacWest 3-1 Saturday and plays again (today).
For full bracket information for the 11-12 tournament and more information on upcoming state tournaments, visit westseattlelittleleague.com.
Another West Seattle sports note – thanks to Brian from Aus der Traum Photography for pix from the bench press/deadlift championships at Alki on Saturday:
That’s recordholder Winifred Pristell, 69 years old, deadlifting 270 pounds, reports Brian, who says that since he was only able to shoot her lift from that angle, he asked her to pose afterward, and that led to the photo you see at left. Results from the meet aren’t posted yet but should eventually turn up here; you can see Pristell’s previous record listed in her age class on this page. According to this article from last year, she’s a great-grandmother who’s only been lifting for a few years!
West Seattle Summer Fest: WSHS football players’ goal
Earlier this week, we brought you the first look at the program for West Seattle Summer Fest, the street festival in The Junction coming up July 11-13 (two weeks from Friday!). Of course, the program doesn’t reveal every little detail of the fun, or the food – part of which will be good chow for a good cause. Eric Radovich from BlueStar, a Summer Fest sponsor, 
tells us about a food booth that hopes to score enough cash to kick off their fundraising program to get new jerseys for the West Seattle High School football team. The ones they’ve been using are more than five years old, and “tired” to say the least. 70 jerseys will cost about $5,000. So football players and parent volunteers, possibly cheerleaders too, will staff a food booth at Summer Fest. The players, in fact, will be taking a course this Saturday at the West Seattle Eagles‘ HQ to qualify for food-handler cards (the course has been on our Events page for a while and is open to the public if you know anyone else who needs to take it). They’re hoping the food booth will bring in at least $1,000 in “seed money” to get the jersey drive — which Marc Patnode is heading up — rolling; they plan to serve chicken sandwiches on French bread, chicken Caesar salads, ice-cream novelties, and soft drinks at the booth, so look for them when you’re hungry/thirsty at Summer Fest.
T(ee) for the Y: Nucor’s tourney makes WS YMCA the winner
Josh Sutton from the West Seattle Family YMCA (WSB sponsor) sends that photo with a big thanks to Nucor — it’s from the company’s annual golf tournament for about 150 staff, vendors and customers, over the weekend at Washington National in Auburn. “This year, they decided to make it a fundraiser, and chose the YMCA as their charity,” Josh explains — with more than $30,000 raised. “We’ll be using funding to support our various youth programs like child care, day camp, academic support, and teen programs.” The photo shows the winning foursome: Weylin Thompson from Mulvanny G2 Architects, Nucor summer Metallurgical Engineering intern Anthony Perugini, and Nucor’s Craig Anderson (who organized the tournament) and CJ Shin. The foursome had a 9-under-par 63, and there’s a P.S. from Josh: “2 Y execs won the longest drives – Sue Camou Arrant and Marcia Isenberger. Must be the power of a good workout.”
West Seattle sports notes: Soccer sign-ups and softball champs
That photo is courtesy of the West Seattle Soccer Club, which wants you to know that fall registration is under way – full details and deadlines at the WSSC site; the age groupings are detailed here. Board member Tim McMonigle tells WSB the league is growing so fast, they may have to expand to use South Park field, and they are looking forward to the Hiawatha renovation work later this year. Meantime, we have a girls-softball update too:
That’s the West Seattle Thunder 16U team, now in celebration and fundraising mode – coach Dan Baker explains why:
The West Seattle Thunder 16U fastpitch softball team won the Sea-Tac Metro Championships this past weekend, qualifying them for a trip to the National Championships in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The team will be holding a fund-raising carwash to help pay expenses for the trip. The carwash will be held at Swedish Automotive (35th Ave SW & Webster), this Saturday, June 14th, 10 am-4 pm.
Also tonight: Tournament play for West Seattle Little League
On behalf of West Seattle Little League, Alki’s Cami MacNamara e-mailed WSB to let you know:
West Seattle Little League has completed regular season play. Congratulations to the Minors division (ages 8-10) Diamondbacks and the Majors division (ages 10-12) Orioles for finishing in first place! Tonight, End of Season (EOS) Tournament play begins for the Minors at Bar-S Field (6464 SW Admiral Way) at 6 pm and runs through June 10th. Majors take the field on Friday, May 30th also play through June 10th. The winner of each division will move on the the District 7 Tournament of Champions on June 13th-16th, hosted by the South Highline Nationals at City Hall Park in Normandy Park. Come down to Bar-S and enjoy the fun! To view the complete tournament schedules, go to westseattlelittleleague.com.
Here’s a map to Bar-S; here are photos from the season-starting Jamboree two short months ago.
1 month till Day 1 @ Colman Pool, which’ll be busier this year
(May 2007 photo of the plywood that covers the Colman Pool windscreen during the offseason)
Exactly one month from today, it’s the first 2008 day of operation for Colman Pool at Lincoln Park, one of the city’s two outdoor pools. Colman Pool will be open weekends only from May 24 till 7-day-a-week operations start June 14. Starting soon after that, it will be busier than usual, because West Seattle’s other pool — Southwest Pool, east of Denny Middle School — is scheduled to close mid-June through late September for three months of work.
Pitches from two local high-school baseball teams
School budgets don’t cover everything needed for extracurricular activities these days; they barely can cover the academic basics. So students need a whole lot of community help … and with that in mind, tonight we are sharing pitches from two local high-school baseball teams:
CHIEF SEALTH HS: Its baseball team has a spaghetti dinner/auction coming up May 2. This year, though, they’re having a tough time coming up with donations for the auction. The event raises most of the annual $ the team needs, so they’re really hoping the auction-donation drive turns around. If you can help, e-mail Coach Policarpio at edpolicarpio@seattleschools.org.
WEST SEATTLE HS: We mentioned this fundraiser a few weeks ago, and now the sales are really ramping up: The team is selling discount tickets to the June 3 Mariners/Angels game — $10 for view reserved (half the usual price); $2 of that goes to the team. You can order up to 25 tickets in an online process that starts with e-mail to groupmanager@mariners.com (be sure the subject line mentions West Seattle HS), or more by calling Stephanie at (206) 518-3879 – if your group has 40 or more, its name will be on the scoreboard during the game.
That’s the ticket: West Seattle ways to help
FROM THE WEST SEATTLE FOOD BANK: Remember the Bruce Springsteen ticket auction to benefit WSFB? Eve Holt from the Food Bank e-mailed to say each pair of auctioned tickets went for $800! And when The Boss played KeyArena, a donation bin set up by WSFB volunteers collected more than $1,000 in cash and checks. You’ve got another chance to help WSFB this Saturday — we’ve mentioned before that because of the Feinstein Challenge, donations made now to the West Seattle and White Center Food Banks help them qualify for matching funds — this Saturday at Metropolitan Market in Admiral, WSFB will be accepting food and $ donations (the weight of food figures into a calculation for matching funds, too). And don’t forget, tickets are on sale for WSFB’s “Instruments of Change” fundraising dinner 6 pm May 1, with music, a Dessert Dash, and more (full details here, including reservation info).
FROM THE MARINERS, ON BEHALF OF WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOL: West Seattle High School is playing at The Safe this Thursday night as part of the High School Baseball Classic — 7 pm, facing Kennedy High School. Admission is free and you’ll be able to park in the Safeco garage for $5 (and if you want to come early, it’s a doubleheader starting with Lakeside vs. Mercer Island at 4 pm). In order to participate, teams have to commit to a fundraising campaign involving selling tickets to a future M’s game, and as part of that, you can buy tickets for the June 3rd M’s-Angels game HALF PRICE! by going to this page – $10 for “view reserved” tickets that are usually $20, and $2 of the price goes to WSHS.
Mariners’ pizza changeup started with West Seattleite’s pitch
As the Mariners play their home opener at Safeco Field tomorrow afternoon, fans will notice something new in the food zones: 
Garlic Jim’s (WSB sponsor) is now The Official Pizza of the Seattle Mariners. You might have heard this already, since the official word trickled out a couple weeks ago, but you probably haven’t heard the backstory, which involves West Seattle Garlic Jim’s owner Ryan Reese (celebrating his store’s 1st anniversary, by the way, congrats!): Ryan tells WSB he and a friend went to a game about this time last year and noticed that while the food vendors were generally local (Ivar’s, Kidd Valley, etc.), the pizza came from Papa John’s, which is based in Kentucky. Since Garlic Jim’s is headquartered in Western Washington, Ryan thought it would be a great fit at Safeco. He talked to corporate HQ in Everett; Ryan says they considered it a long shot but thought it worth making a pitch. So he checked with the M’s and discovered the pizza contract was in fact up for bid, and that GJ’s could get in on the process. They set up a meeting at The Safe; Ryan fixed pizzas at his restaurant in The Junction and took them over before he and others including Garlic Jim’s CEO Dwayne Northrop met M’s brass. Like runners moving around the bases, things advanced from there, and starting tomorrow, you’ll find Garlic Jim’s Pizza at The Safe. Ryan says the 200 level will offer pizza by the slice, and it’ll be mini-pizzas at the 100 and 300 levels. By the way, this isn’t the only Garlic Jim’s baseball involvement — after we published a West Seattle Little League pitch for team sponsors a few days ago, Ryan signed up to sponsor a WSLL team. (Don’t miss WSB contributing photojournalist Matt Durham‘s great pix from yesterday’s WSLL Jamboree; see them here.)
West Seattle Little League Jamboree: A home run
Wintry chill couldn’t keep West Seattle Little League players and families off Bar-S Playfield today for the annual season-starting Jamboree. WSB contributing photojournalist Matt Durham got tons of great shots:
At center right in the group of photos above, that’s the “Voice of the Mariners,” West Seattle resident Tom Hutyler, on hand to announce players and teams. In the group of photos below, at upper right you see former Mariners and Oakland A’s outfielder Dave Henderson pitch in the first ball, along with one lucky Little League player. Matt writes: “Players and coaches, from T-ball to Majors, ran onto the chilled field as fans and parents hailed their grit”:
Prints of Matt’s WSB photos and his other work are available through his site, MattDurhamPhotography.com.
Play ball! West Seattle Little League’s 50th anniversary tipoff
We brought you news about sign-up season for West Seattle Little League and other area sports leagues some weeks back. Now – it’s game time! WSLL is celebrating its 50th anniversary, having started in 1958. And it’s got two major events in the next few days – here’s the official announcement:
TONIGHT: West Seattle Little League will hold our annual Parent Meeting this evening at 7pm at West Seattle High School Commons. The meeting will cover information and events for the upcoming season, including updates on plans for the $100,000 grant received this summer from Boeing and the Mariners. All families that are currently registered are encouraged to attend. Uniforms will be distributed to players. This is a great opportunity to meet your teammates and we will also hold a raffle for fun prizes!
SATURDAY: Please join West Seattle Little League’s season kickoff at our annual Jamboree! The event is held at Bar-S Field ( 6464 SW Admiral Way). Players are to arrive at 10 am. At 10:30 am, teams will be introduced with a ceremony following at 11 am. Exhibition games will begin at 11:30 am. To see the full schedule of games, tee ball through majors, go to www.westseattlelittleleague.com/jamboree.html. This event is open to the public. Our Snack Shack will offer full service throughout the day.
Sponsors are still needed for the 2008 Season. If you are interested in sponsoring a team, please contact us through our new and improved website: westseattlelittleleague.com.
Happening right now: Get your car washed, help a team
Not only is sale season (as noted earlier this morning) under way, so is fundraising-car-wash season. Above, you see a quick snap of the Seattle Rainiers 14U team‘s car wash that’s happening till 4 pm today at Complete Auto Repair on the west side of 35th at Holden (map here, but you can’t miss ’em; stretched out over about 2 blocks in both directions are some of the most enthusiastic sign-wavers we’ve ever seen). And the sun’s out just in time!
Inspired by beach volleyball competition at the Olympics? Envious of what you see on the sand at Alki (and by the way, 
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