Things learned, observed in Pacific high school spring sports season Week 13.0.
Published: May 21, 2012
Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as Ornauer begins that marathon sprint known as Far East high school spring sports tournaments week.
Maybe there’s something to be said for solar eclipses and their effect on things down below. Or maybe it was a case of unimaginably horrid luck.
In any case, Zama American girls soccer striker Rachel Walls’ career likely came to an unceremonious end on Monday, Day 1 of the Far East Girls Division II Tournament on the pitch of Lake Penny Field, Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni.
Same ankle, the left one. Same area, the lower part. Same everything suffered when she first hurt the leg in March in a Kanto Plain/DODDS Japan match against Nile C. Kinnick at Yokosuka Naval Base.
She went down with the injury early in the Trojans’ 1-0 loss to Daegu High. The doctors told her they weren’t sure if in fact it was refractured, but they told her to stay off the leg, Walls told me by phone early Monday evening.
That news capped a match in which the lone goal came in bizarre fashion … or so it seemed. It depends on who you chat with about it.
After Walls got hurt, emergency vehicles were dispatched to the scene. Including a provost marshal’s vehicle which, while play was ongoing and the driver likely oblivious to that fact, simply came onto the field and dashed across it.
Moments later, Jayana Hopson scored the lone goal of the match. Some argued it was because the emergency vehicle was on the field. Others said the vehicle cross the field behind the play while the ball was headed in the other direction; even the referees weren’t aware that the car crossed the field.
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American School In Japan’s baseball team’s tour to China ended with quite the learning experience, four straight defeats at the hands of the Major League Baseball International’s Development Center, sort of what soccer might term an Olympic development program. Very educational and I’m sure something that the Mustangs, who ran the table in the Kanto Plain, will not soon forget.
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A tip of the cap to Stefani Loisel, the multifaceted Guam High senior track and field athlete who enters this week’s Far East meet on a record note.
She shattered her own Pacific record in the 300 hurdles, running it in 47.01 seconds in Friday’s Independent Interscholastic Athletic Association of Guam All-Island finals at Leo Palace Resort in Yona.
Going through the list of events, here’s a quick primer on which Far East meet records you can expect to be broken this week:
-- Boys discus and shot put: Roland Cote of Zama American will likely put the marks out of reach, at least on the Far East meet level.
-- Girls long jump and discus: Could be endangered; depends on who brings their A game.
-- Girls high jump: Zion Christian Academy’s Arrianna Guerra is more than capable of surpassing 1.41 meters.
-- Girls 100 hurdles: Loisel clocked 15.6 seconds last Friday, nearly two seconds faster than her Far East meet record.
-- Boys 100: Three have already gone under 11 seconds here.
-- Girls 1,500: Amanda Henderson of Seoul American makes quick work of this.
-- Boys 400 relay: Can Yokota live up to its word?
-- Boys 110, 300 hurdles: Yokota’s Fred Gustafsson will also threaten the Pacific records here.
-- 200s: Girls have easily surpassed 27 seconds and boys 22 seconds throughout the season.
Record book! Get me rewrite!
