Looking back at 2008: Local sports in review

Mountain Area sports took off in 2008

Mike Hackworth

(Updated: Friday, January 02, 2009, 12:24 PM)

At the end of each year, it's always interesting to look back at all that has happened in our community's sports with athletes both young and old excelling in their chosen endeavors.

The year 2008 was no exception. It brought us a host of compelling sports stories, including the culmination of another Yosemite Badgers' Ginsburg Award for athletic excellence and the Yosemite Youth PeeWee football team's quest for perfection with a 12-0 season and a Super Bowl victory.

There was no shortage of individual accomplishment by local competitors.

The River Creek Women' Golf Club team of Candace Flammang, Pookie Mansker, Loretta Fairband and Angela Peters competed in monthly tournaments in Pacific Women's Golf Association competition and brought home a second place finish.

Loretta Fairband captured the PWGA's individual competition title in a tiebreaker. Fairband took first with a net 73.

Also in women's golf, long time lady golfer Joyce Norman had a hole-in-one on the eighth hole at Sierra Meadows.

It is the 10th hole-in-one for Norman who said, "I wanted to get the 10th one before I was 80."

A pair of Yosemite 2007 graduates, distance runner Julianne Warmerdam and golfer Jed Noonkester were named as the Sierra Star Female and Male Athletes of the year.

Warmerdam led the Badgers finish one of the top two teams at the CIF Valley Championships. She was also Yosemite's only medalist.

The Yosemite senior guided his team to a first-place finish in the North Sequoia League and the Division-II North Area (small school) regional finals.

"(Head) Coach (Rusty) Oetinger really pushed us," Noonkester said.

"We've gone through a lot.

He took us from a bunch of individuals to a team."

The Badgers' football team was represented by a quartet of players in the City/County and North South all-star games in June. Tyler Rasmussen, Shane Williams, Shawn Hackworth and Josiah Stansbury had one last hurrah on the gridiron.

In July, the Yosemite Little League All-Star team defeated the Riverpark Little League All-Star team 5-0 to become the Division 10, Area 1 champions.

More adults are getting out and enjoying sports activities as demonstrated by the success of the Mountain Area Adult Soccer League which wrapped up its first season with Soccer Bowl I. The inaugural championship game was played in March by the Mudd Sox (6-0-2) and the Par 4 (4-1-3).

The game, played in Badgers' Stadium, was a 1-0 victory by Par 4. The consolation game for third place was played by the Ballers (2-6-0) and Chunky Monkey (3-4-1). The Chunky Monkey came away with a 3-2 win.

In July, the Oakhurst Pétanque Club, hosted the New Zealand Seniors (over 60) national Pétanque team, and the OPC was soundly thrashed 81-34 at Two Rivers Stadium.

"The competition was a lot closer than the 34-81," Oakhurst president, Manny Sanz said.

"In many of the games, the Oakhurst teams were within two or three points."

The 23 senior players from the New Zealand Pétanque Federation (10 couples and three single players) come from all parts of New Zealand and stayed in host family homes while visiting Oakhurst.

In bowling, junior bowler Danyn Terry qualified for the International Family Tournament Bowling Finals held in Baton Rouge, LA on August 1-2 and returned home with a 15th place finish and was awarded a $600 college scholarship.

Terry was also named a NorCal All-Star for the 2007-2008 bowling season.

Also from the lanes, veteran Oakhurst Bowler Jim Temes rolled a 300 game in September at the Sierra Lanes Bowling Center, his sixth.

Temes, who bowls on the Big "O" Rollers in the Thursday night Men's league, finished the evening 300/762 series.

"I've bowled 16, 300 games in my time," Temes said.

"My first was a long, long time ago, more than 40 years ago, in North Dakota."

Ted Lilly, a 1994 Yosemite graduate and starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs helped lead the team to the NLDS. The Oakhurst lefty, had career bests in wins (16) and strikeouts (180) in 198.2 innings.

In the fourth annual YHS baseball all-star game, The Blue team coached by Manager Dan Roberts, and John Summerville managed the Gray team.

The highlight of the game was the ceremonial first pitch, thrown out in 2008 by Ellen Peterson, a social science teacher and coach at Yosemite High School. Peterson tossed the pitch to former student Dayton Buller, who was behind the plate for the Gray team. Peterson taught all 34 alumni when they attended Yosemite.

"This was definitely one of the most fantastic days of my life," Peterson said. "Last night my husband John and I practiced for this pitch."

The game was won by the Gray team 12-5.

The Sierra Women's Slow-Pitch softball league championship tournament was won by the Mighty Chicks over the Raymond Broncos 2 games to none at the Ahwahnee Elementary School softball fields in August.

The Mighty Chicks downed the Raymond team 11-5 in game one and then 15-14 in game two, taking seven innings after trailing by seven runs.

Yosemite grad Katie Menton ('05) was named to the WCC (West Coast Conference)All-Freshman squad for 2007-08 as a freshman at Pepperdine University.

Menton averaged 8.6 points and 2.8 rebounds. She ranked ninth in three-pointers per game (1.5) and 12th in three-point field goal percentage (30.9 percent) in the conference and appeared in all 28 games for the Waves.

The 5-feet-10-inch guard reached double-figures in scoring 13 times and had a season-high 18 points vs. Saint Mary's.

The 49th Mid-Sierra Loggers Jamboree was held on Fourth of July weekend at the North Fork Recreation Center.

In the Pro-Logging events, the 2008 All-Around Champion Logger is Nathan Hodges of North Fork who won his fourth consecutive all-around title. Only two other loggers, Jim Taylor and Alvin McDonald have won three consecutive titles before Hodges.

Hodges has been a competitor in the Jamboree since 2004. George Harrison Jr. finished second and Aaron Morrow, the 2003 champion, was third.

Early in October, the 21st annual Smokey Bear Run/walk was held with more participants and clear skies.

"There were 524 participants Saturday which includes all children races, runners and walkers," event organizer Eva Busto said. "That is up 83 from our numbers from last year. Our kid's numbers doubled from last year's count too."

Colleen Warmerdam was the 2-mile run overall champion for the third year in a row and topping her own record 12:24 by finishing in a time of 12:19.

The Yosemite High School freshman has set a new standard with each win.

The overall winner of the Mens' 10K Run was Roosevelt Cook with a time of 31:56 beating his first place time of a year ago of 45:43. The winner of the Womens' 10K Run was Lea Nibur also the 2007 champion in the event with a time of 40:50.

The Mens' 2-mile overall champion is Humberto Osuna in a time of 10:18.

Keith Tolbirt from Oakhurst, brought home gold medals in both singles and doubles competition at the Huntsman World Senior Games in October.

"This was my first time winning a medal," Tolbirt said. "The World Senior Games was a very rewarding experience with many exceptional tennis players."

The Huntsman World Senior Games are a world-class, Olympic-format, international sporting event for athletes ages 50 years and older.

So there you have it, some of the highlights in sports over the past year.

We can't cover them all, we just don't have the space, that's what happens when you get successful.

Next edition will cover the Yosemite Higfh School sports programs year in review.

Until then...

Happy New Year.