Youth sports leaders to be recognized next week

Thirty-six youth athletes, coaches and youth sports contributors will be recognized for their dedication to positive leadership and outstanding character during the Phoenix Regional Sports Commission’s Youth Sports Awards Banquet next Saturday.

Winners of the Youth Sports of the Year Awards will be announced at the event, which will take place at 8 a.m. at Grand Canyon University’s new arena, 3300 W. Camelback Rd. in Phoenix. Register for the event here.

The nominees represent all levels of play from various youth sports offered around the Valley:

Jerod Aker (left), head baseball coach for Apollo High School.

Coaches

Rob Gorrell – Coach and co-founder of Sandlot All-Stars Baseball.

Pat Murphy – Coach and co-founder of Sandlot All-Stars Baseball, All Nine Baseball Academy.

Patty Egan - Coaches cross country, girls soccer and track at Cactus Shadows High School.

Steve Bomar - Youth girls basketball coach and founder of the Gilbert Genies Basketball Club.

Eric Kibler – Horizon High School baseball coach for more than 28 years and three-time recipient of the Arizona Coach of the Year award. In 2005 he received the ABCA High School National Coach of the Year.

Harry Demos - CCV STARS sports pastor and director of coaching for boys soccer.

James Smith – Head track and field coach at Westwood High School, head coach and president for the AZ Flames Track Club, USATF Masters Chair.

Melissa Belote Ripley - Has been coaching club swimming for more than 30 years and currently coaches at McClintock High School and Rio Salado Swim Club.

Jordan Demos – Youth Soccer Coach for the CCV Stars Soccer Club.

Jake Peterson - Coaches middle school and high school football/basketball for Rancho Solano Private Schools.

Jaime Pagliarulo – Girls soccer coach for Hamilton High School, San Tan Soccer Club and Arizona Youth Soccer Association.

Steve Lewis – Empowerment Through Sports (ETS) Youth Football League coach.

Dameon Blair – Boulder Creek High School junior varsity basketball coach.

Jim Ewan – Football coach for Chandler High School since 2001.

Jerod Aker – Baseball coach for Apollo High School; he has been the head coach of a baseball team for a total of 15 years.

Joshua Braun (left) plays basketball at Boulder Creek High School.

Athletes

Joshua Brown – Plays basketball at Boulder Creek High School, where he is a member of the National Honor Society and ranked 12^th in his class.

Hannah Carson –  Track and field, Chandler High School. She’s ranked #1 in the nation for javelin and has qualified for the 2012 Olympics. She will be attending Texas Tech University on scholarship.

Zach Wright – Golf, Pinnacle High School, committed to Louisiana State University. He is currently ranked #12 Boy in the National Polo Rankings

Brandon Senior - Track and Field, honors student at Notre Dame Preparatory High School and member of the AZ Flames Track Club.

Nathan Ponwith – Tennis, Arizona Virtual Academy, participates in the United States Tennis Association.

Tyler Pugh – Football, basketball and baseball; attends Rancho Solano Private School.

Kyung Kim – Golf, Chandler Hamilton High School, currently plans on attending University of Southern California.

Molly Johnson – Baton twirling, Thunderbird High School, member of Phoenix Superstars Twirl Team, plans to attend Fort Hayes University in Kansas.

Dylan Hambright- Track, Arcadia High School, member of the Arizona Elite Track Club.

Shannon Gurley – Volleyball, attends middle school at Rancho Solano Private Schools, also participates in soccer and drama at school.

Wendy Riddell (S.T.A.R. Pony Club, ASU UC Soccer).

Contributor

Jeffrey Kratzke – Volunteer coach for cross country and track at Cactus Shadows High School.

Hugh Smith-  Executive director of The First Tee of Phoenix, a non-profit organization that provides educational programs, values and healthy choices for Valley youth through the game of golf.

Lisa Sanchez – President of Holiday Park Little League, a volunteer position for an inner city youth baseball league.

Bob Capron – Oversees the Metro Phoenix United States Tennis Association. Inducted into both the USTA Phoenix Hall of Fame and USTA Southwest Hall of Fame in 2005.

John Canter – Started a community weightlifting and training program where 60 local kids are now involved and active.

Wendy Riddell – Youth equestrian coach and S.T.A.R. Pony Club board member, age group coordinator for ASUSC Soccer.

Erik Widmark – Executive director for the Grand Canyon State Games, the largest amateur sports festival of its kind in the country, since 1995.

Chad Robinson – Started the Prime Time Athletics flag football program, the official league of the NFL Flag program.

Peyton Sullivan – Youth Umpire for Deer Valley Little League, certified as a district umpire.

Scott Smith – Volunteer umpire-in-chief for Deer Valley Little League.

The Phoenix Regional Sports Commission was created to “enrich the community through sports.” The 501(c)3 non-profit focuses on three areas: bringing national and international sporting events to the state, assisting in the promotion of existing events and teams and supporting youth sports programs. Learn more.

Track meet tension — and joy

Saguaro's Katie Drake (center) takes the baton from teammate Katie Alhadeff for the anchor leg of the 4x100 relay at Friday's Scottsdale City track meet. The team from Chaparral (left) is about to make the exchange while a runner from Desert Mountain (right) awaits her teammate.

Watching a high school track meet in the early evening this time of year is a relaxing and stress-free activity — unless your child is competing in the meet.  On Friday night, I went over to Chaparral High School to watch the Scottsdale City Track Meet, which is held annually for the five Scottsdale Unified School District Schools — Arcadia, Chaparral, Coronado, Desert Mountain and Saguaro.

In particular, I wanted to see Saguaro’s Katie Drake run the 100-, 200- and 400- meter races and the 4×100 relay. Katie is the daughter of Raising Arizona Kids Senior Account Executive Susie Drake and her husband, Scott.

Katie, now a junior, has been running since she was 7 years old.  “I started running because my mom thought I would like it,” Katie said Friday, “and then I grew to love it.”

Katie’s parents made their best effort to remain calm during the meet, but whenever Katie was on the track that facade fell away. There were emotional ups and downs as Katie finished second in the 100 meters, ran the winning anchor leg in the 4×100 relay (after overcoming a difficult baton exchange) and then ran out of gas in the 400 meters, where she had the lead in the last 100 meters but finished fourth.

Katie had plenty of gas left for her last race, however, as she finished first with a time of 27:39. As Katie crossed the finished line, Susie thrust her arms in the air with joy and quickly walked down the stands to congratulate her daughter.

After the last race, I asked Katie what it was like to run four races in a period of about two hours, including running the 400 meters within 10 minutes of finishing the 4×100 relay. “It was horrible!” Katie said while beaming and holding her first place medal. As you can see from the photo I took a moment later, it couldn’t have been too bad.

Katie Drake flanked by her parents, Susie and Scott, after winning the 200 meters .

As I started to leave the meet, I came upon Mary K. Reinhart, who was there to watch her daughter Emily, a Chaparral sophomore, compete in the last event of the evening: the girls’ pole vault. A year ago, Mary K. wrote in this blog about watching Emily try a new sport as a freshman.

“Emily is still working on getting over the bar in competition,” Mary K. wrote at that time. As we waited for the pole vault to begin, Mary K. wondered aloud whether here attendance this evening was “bad luck” for Emily. “Her event is usually the first one of the meet, so I never get to see it because of work,” said Mary K., who is one of the top political reporters in the state at The Arizona Republic.

As everyone in the crowd, and indeed many of the other competitors of the five schools, watched the final event of the evening, Emily proved that her mom’s attendance did not spell doom for her. A lot had happened in the past year. Emily may have been “still working on getting over the bar in competition” a year ago, but on this evening she won the Scottsdale City meet.

“Wow,” said her mom quietly. “Wow.” — Dan Barr

Getting a good start

State 400 Meter Champion Michelle Kreutzberg works on her starts.

While the first practice for many Arizona high school track teams is tomorrow and the first meets will not take place until later this month or early March,  many of the top track athletes have been at it for many months now. I ran into four of them over the weekend at Chaparral High School.

For almost every Sunday morning since September, Ben Kmetz, Porter Marsh, Andrew Kaufman and Michelle Kreutzberg have trained with coach Brad Gettleman.  All four are seniors.  Ben does the triple jump and hurdles at North Canyon.  Porter and Andrew are distance runners at Chaparral.  And Michelle attends Desert Mountain, where she is the defending state champion in the 400 meter run in Division 5A II.

In addition to running, their Sunday training sessions include plyometrics, weight training, abdominal and core exercises (including a variety of ways of tossing the medicine ball around) and running with weighted jackets.

(R to L) Porter Marsh, Ben Kmetz and Andrew Kaufman work the rope ladder.

On Sunday, Michelle was working on her starts.  Ideally, a sprinter wants to drive straight ahead out of the starting blocks and not pick her head up to look forward during the first six to seven strides of the sprint.  “My starts have never been great,” said Michelle, who wondered on Sunday whether her second step at the start was too long, thus forcing her to stand straight up too soon after the start. Michelle’s starts couldn’t have been too bad, since she has not only won a state championship, but will be going to Tulane University next fall on a track scholarship.

Porter Marsh airborne.

While Michelle worked on her starts, Ben, Porter and Andrew did various agility drills, including using a rope ladder on the track small hurdles to do vertical leaps. One could hardly see their feet as their staccato steps zipped quickly through the rope ladder on the track.

After they finished their workout, I spent a few minutes with the four athletes. All said they loved competing and, like most high school athletes these days, did not fully appreciate when they started their track careers how much work would be required. From what I saw on Sunday, their effort has been worth it. — Dan Barr

From left: Michelle Kreutzberg, Andrew Kaufman, Porter Marsh and Ben Kmetz.

A chance to soar

I was lost when I walked into my first Chaparral High track and field meet this season. What were the events again? I knew there were sprints and distance events, some jumping and throwing and relays of some sort. I wasn’t quite sure which part was track and which was field. I knew a little bit about the pole vault, because for some reason my freshman daughter had decided to try planting a 12-foot pole into a three-foot hole and see if she could soar into the air.

Emily Kaplan, the author's daughter, attempts a vault during track practice at Chaparral High School in Scottsdale.

I had arrived late, and I didn’t know the order of things. How much had I missed? How long do these things go on? And where were my kids among the sea of red and white Firebird warmups lounging on the football field inside the track?

Standing by the fence along the finish line, I hoped one of them would see me and decide to acknowledge me. Then Emily came racing down the track, in what I later learned was the 200-meter dash. She came in second in an exhibition heat. Looked good to me, but she was disappointed because she hadn’t beaten her best time.

Best times. Exhibition heats. A co-ed sport that offers plenty of time for socializing and flirting between events. This was starting to sound familiar.

Our children have been swimmers for many years, and the similarities are striking. I knew from our swim coaches that track was great cross-training, but I never realized the two sports had so much in common. The scoring has parallels, with points given in descending order based on your finish, all combined for the team score at the end of the meet. You try different events and, as you grow, begin to specialize in one or two. Like swimming, the athletes carb load at pasta parties before each meet.

Chaparral has some terrific track and field athletes, including state champ pole vaulter Liz Portanova, sprinter Nikko Landis, twin distance runners Shane and Shawn Maule, and triple-jumper Cody Moore. They benefit from an excellent coaching staff, with decades of experience and an Olympic gold medal in the trophy case of pole vault coach Nick Hysong.

But it’s a huge team and it appears that most of the kids, like mine, are there to learn and have fun and stay in shape. That takes a lot of the pressure off the kids, though it’s not necessarily a recipe for a championship team. Maybe that’s not surprising, given all the emphasis on football, basketball and baseball, and the club sports that take up every moment in between. Still, it’s a shame for those dedicated, one-sport athletes who miss the chance to sample what high school has to offer and try something new.

I find my way to the bleachers and recognize a family whose son joined the team last year. They patiently answer my questions and explain some of the rules. I’m still scouring the field for my son when he whizzes by in another exhibition heat of the 200-meter dash. It’s his first race ever and he looks great.

It occurs to me that I’ve never seen my kids run like that, a full-on sprint with techniques they had surely learned in the past few weeks of practice. They might never run track again, but these were lessons they could take with them. I was learning, too, about a new sport, meeting a new batch of families who were cheering on the team and reacquainting with parents I hadn‘t seen in years.

The regular season ends with a home meet April 21 against Desert Mountain, followed by the Scottsdale City Meet on April 28. That’s likely the end of the season for my junior-varsity track dabblers. Regionals and finals are set for early May.

Emily is still working on getting over the crossbar in competition. I’m in awe that she’s chosen what looks like an impossibly difficult event and she loves it. But she turned down her first chance to compete at the last meet, afraid that she’d fail, and she wasn’t entirely happy with her decision. That’s the beauty of high school: You can still miss opportunities, make mistakes and take chances, without so much at stake. The next opportunity she gets to soar into the air, I’m betting she takes it. — Mary K. Reinhart