Every year, we look forward to summer on the sports desk.
It’s a chance for us to breathe again, after the pandemonium of covering preps for nine months. This is the time of year we take days off, go to concerts and Mariners games, print lots of outdoors news about the excellent fishing around the Olympic Peninsula, listen to the denizens at the Barhop rave about Cal Raleigh and head off to hiking trips.
However, this is one of the busiest weekends of the summer with both the Port Angeles Lefties and the Dick Brown Memorial Firecracker tournament going on.
The tournament directors are still looking for volunteers to help out at three separate venues — Volunteer Field, Civic Field and Sequim High School, with concession stands, scoreboards, public address announcing, etc. People who want to volunteer can go to https://signup.com/go/bXwpFur.
For the first time, some the Firecracker games will take place at Sequim High School for the juniors tournament. Wilder Junior will play at 9 a.m. today and at 8 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Friday. The Wilder A team will play at 6 p.m. today, 3:30 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Saturday, all at Sequim High School.
Meanwhile, the Wilder Seniors will play at Volunteer Field in Port Angeles at 4 p.m. today and at 4 p.m. Friday.
Wilder Teams strong
Both the Wilder Junior and Senior teams are strong this year with identical 10-4 records. Wilder Junior is coming off a 5-0 showing at an American Legion tournament in Selah, beating teams from Yakima and Tri-Cities that often give teams west of the Cascades a hard time.
Wilder Senior has a unique team this year, with the most Sequim players on it I’ve seen since I’ve been here. Wilder Senior has Sequim’s Bryant Laboy, Zeke Schmadeke, Ethan Staples, Braydan White, Devyn Dearinger and Lincoln Bear teaming up with Port Angeles Roughriders stars Luke Flodstrom, Alex Angevine, Rylan Politika, Jordan Shumway, Josiah Gooding and Kody Williams. Joining this talented group is one of Forks’ best players, Landen Olson, plus two Skagit Valley College players from Port Angeles, Ezra Townsend and Colton Romero. That is a lot of talent on that team.
Even Wilder Junior has three Sequim kids — Hunter Tennell, Duran Ward and Logan Doyle teaming up with young Port Angeles Roughriders stars Bryce Deleon and Ian Smithson. The other youngsters are talented JV players and recent youth baseball graduates such as Carston Seibel, Owen Leitz, Carson Waddell, Easton Fisher, Ethan Swenson and others. These are kids that have had a lot of success at the Olympic Junior Babe Ruth level.
And we have the Lefties taking on the Kelowna Falcons on Friday and Saturday nights at Civic Field with its brand new video board, and at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. The Lefties have definitely shown an ability to score runs this year.
What a busy weekend. The last big blowout of baseball action until the next Dick Brown youth tournament in August.
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Sports Editor Pierre LaBossiere can be contacted at plabossiere@peninsuladailynews.com.
