ANY HISTORICAL ARGUMENT concerning sports usually demands one thing: statistics.
You can keep all of your legends and tales of wonder. I want to know how many home runs they hit, what their scoring average is or how many yards they ran for.
Unfortunately, the lack of statistical records is a common theme on the Peninsula prep sports scene.
Just this last fall I had to pour through dozens of yearbooks and miles of microfiche just to come up with year-to-year records for the Port Angeles football team. And that’s something one would think is relatively easy to keep track of.
Information like all-time passing, rushing and tackling leaders? Forget about it.
That would seem like quite a roadblock for a coach looking to build tradition within a program. After all, many athletes find inspiration in chasing records.
Often, the only thing available is a record of what players did under a certain coach. It seems links to past are all but broken when coaches head elsewhere.
One of the few exceptions is the Sequim boys basketball program.
Thanks to longtime coach Larry Hill, there is an extensive history of the Wolves spanning three decades.
So if you ever want to know who the all-time leading 3-point shooter is (Ary Webb), Hill can answer it quickly and without a doubt.
Just another reason to love the man.
PA girls scoring mark
I continually hit a dead end this week while trying to find out where Jessica Madison sits on the Port Angeles girls basketball scoring list.
It appears that outside of collecting each scorer’s book from the 1970s to now and counting up the numbers, there is no way of knowing.
All I could get was anecdotal evidence from a variety of sources, all of whom agreed Madison was either near the top of the list or atop it already with 1,149 points.
Among the other names offered up as possibilities: Karena Greeny, Leigh Morgan, Jennifer Irvine and Kelley Berglund. Of course, nobody knows point totals for any of them.
“I’m sure between those four and Jessica we’ve come up with the top five,” said former Port Angeles athletic director Frank Prince. “Jessica is in my opinion leading them all.
“I haven’t seen a girl scoring in the mid to low 20s [at Port Angeles] like she does consistently.”
Quick hitters
• Port Angeles wrestler Brian Hergert earned his first win at the high school level.
Hergert, who was profiled in the PDN on last February, has been legally blind in both eyes since birth. He took up wrestling as a freshman for the first time last year and immediately fell in love with the sport.
Winless through the beginning of the season, Hergert pinned an opponent at Port Townsend’s junior varsity tournament last week. He is 0-18 at the varsity level this season.
• The Crescent boys basketball team ended quite a drought when it beat Neah Bay 39-37 on the road last week.
Prior to that victory, a Loggers team hadn’t won a game in Neah Bay since January of 1994. Port Angeles chiropractor Jim Halberg scored 34 points in that game, an 83-65 win, on its way to a North Olympic League title.
Not surprisingly, that is also the last time Crescent won the NOL.
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Matt Schubert is the outdoors and sports columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. His column regularly appears on Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at matt.schubert@peninsuladailynews.com.