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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
August 9, 2012     Shelton Mason County Journal
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August 9, 2012
 
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Shelton-Mason County Journal ATHLETEOFTHEWEEK Shelton grad rows through college By EMILY HANSON emily@masoncounty.com .S rug By EMILY HANSON emi@(~?masoncounty.co~n The Shelton girls' rugby 7s team defended its state title two weeks ago and came out on top for a second consecutive state championship. On July 28, the girls dominat- ed Prairie Crush from Yelm 64-0 in Tacoma. "It was a pretty good game," head coach Josh Duchene said. "We put up 26 in the first half. Then I made a couple substitu- tions and kept all our seniors in because it was their last game with Shelton. I ~think every- one scored except for two of our girls." Despite the lopsided score of the game, Duchene said Prairie Crush was a competitive team with Size on their side. "Yelm's players are a lot big- ger than ours, like most teams we play, so making one-on-one tackles was difficult," he said. Shelton's game plan is always based on the speed of its players. "We're faster than a lot of were Rearm Stratton and Ka- tie Chapman. This was the last game for four recent Shelton High School graduates: Diandra Nault, Quincie Ball, Mary Giv- ens and Brittany Young. "There has been a lot of im- provement from those four girls," teams we play so our ball move- Duchene said. "They're reallead- ment puts us in good spots," ers and theyoungergirlslookup Duchene said. to them and want to make them The top scorers for the team proud." When thinking of Wash- ington State University, which is surrounded by wheat fields, the first sport to come to mind is not usu- ally rowing. But Erin Ranney, a WSU incoming senior and 2009 Shelton High School gradu- ate, has helped solidify the rowing team for the last three years. "The team has been really success- ful," Ran- hey said. "There's been a lot of amaz- ing girls who've Erin gone be- Ranney yond the college lev- el of row- ing. We're usually ranked pretty high in the NCAA, too." Ranney began her row- ing career as a freshman at WSU. Although she had never rowed before, the sport is in her genes. "My parerits both rowed in college _so they told me it was a good spor~ and I should look into it," Ranney said. "They were both really into it when they went to the University of Puget Sound." With very few high schools in Washington state featuring rowing teams, Ranney said WSU focuses on recruiting walk-ons to the rowing team when ath- letic girls enter the school as freshmen. "They try to get athletic girls to join the team," she said. "We have a lot of Ca- nadian girls, some from Australia. New Zealand and Europe. You get to meet a lot of girls from all around." She said there are four types of rowers in the boat. "The strokes keep the rhythm and lead everyone, the engine room rowers are the powerful girls in the middle of the boat, the bows are in the back, also keeping the rhythm and the coxswain calls out instruc- tions," Ranney said. "The strokes and bows are small- er girls and that's where l usually row." She called rowing the "ultimate team sport." "You develop a family at the school and the team de- pends on everyone working together," Ranney said. With no large body of wa- ter on the WSU campus, the rowing team travels for 20- 30 minutes to train on the Snake River. That is also where home races are held. For away races, the team has traveled to Seattle and as far away as California. "We travel a lot," Ranney said. During the fall, the row- ing team competes in dis- tance races, usually 6Ks and during the spring, it competes in sprint races, usually 2Ks. "During the winter, we throw on snow boots and thick jackets, walk to the gym and train," Ranney said. Nearing the beginning of her senior year, Ranney said this season would be See Rowing on page C-3 JOUrnal Dnoto by Em Hanson Cody Williamson, 16, runs the final stretch of the Beast of Big Creek 10K on Sa.turday. Williamson won the race for the second consecutive year. [] [] [] Cody Williamson wins Beast of Big Creek l OK By EMILY HANSON ¢:mi[,z~!'rna.~o,'~co~z ntv.con~ Cody Williamson is not a large per- son but on Saturday, he again became a beast. For the second consecutive year. Williamson. 16. won the Beast of Big Creek 10K with a time of 41 minutes, 19 seconds. "It feels awesome," said Williamson, an incoming junior at Shelton High School. "It feels really, really awesome." Though he won the race 27 sec- onds ahead of Nate Van Haitsma, 17, of Olympia, Williamson said he. Van Haitsma and Pat McClurry, 35, of Caldwell. Idaho. had a good ~ack going on the uphill portion of the run. "On the downhill, that's where we started splitting up," Williamson said. "Toward the very end of the race. I fi- nally got by myself." Van Haitsma placed second with a time of 41:46 while McClurry took third with a time of 44:07. "On the uphill, running with people made it a lot easier because it helped me focus." Williamson said. "On the downhill, it didn't really matter if I was alone or not. On the straights, though, it helps to run with people because it keeps you going." He said his favorite portion of the trail came near the 3-mile mark. "You hit a waterfall there and go across a bridge so the air cools down," Williamson said. "Then you go back to the mugginess so it really wasn't worth it." When asked if he plans to return to Big Creek to defend his title next year, Williamson said "Heck, yeah." John Johnson with the Shelton Har- riers, the organizer of the event, said he thought the race was a success. "We grew the event from last year and we had some pretty good endur- ance athletes," Johnson said. He added a 20K run to the event this year. Originally, the 20K trail was supposed to go from Big Creek to the summit of Mt. Ellinor. However, the dangerous goat situation on Mt. Ellinor closed the trail to the summit. "I created a two-loop course instead," Johnson said. "The summit race is pretty rare. so it'll be better next year, See Beast on page C-3 Shelton-Mason County Journal - Thursday, Aug. 9, 2012 - Page C-1