Wenatchee High School alums Jeff Kintner, Tom Ballinger and Ben Spaun have all qualified for the NCAA Division III men’s track championships, which get underway today at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Kintner, a sophomore at Whitworth, qualified in the shot put with a heave of 53-6.25 at the Northwest Conference Championships. Spaun, a senior at Whitworth, will only compete in the decathlon at nationals despite winning the 110 hurdles, 400 hurdles and leading off the winning 4×400 relay at the conference meet. Ballinger, a junior at Carleton College in Minnesota is the fifth seed in the 400 hurdles.

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Here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know. Little Pateros High School has the best times in the state, among Class 1B schools, in all six individual running events. Diana Batson’s times are tops in the 100, 200 and 400-meter dashes, and teammate Karissa Carlson reigns supreme in the 800, 1600 and 3200-meter runs. Clara Hull also has the best shot put mark in the state in 1B as well.

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Wenatchee High School alumnus and current Whitworth decathlete Ben Spaun was the subject of a front-page story in the Spokane Spokesman Review. Spaun was accepted into a six-year doctoral program at Harvard, with an emphasis on physics. He has already completed a double-major in math and physics at the Spokane school.

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Wenatchee High School alumnus Tom Ballinger, currently a junior at Carleton College in Minnesota, was named the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) track athlete of the week.Ballinger, who represented the Panthers at two state tournaments, won the 400-meter hurdles at the Carleton Relays and in doing so registered a NCAA qualifying time of 53.57.He also won the same event at the Macalester Twilight earlier in the week.Ballinger has the MIAC’s top time in the 200, 400, 400 hurdles and as a member of the Knights’ 4×400 relay team.Ballinger’s sister Kristen won the 4A state championship in the 400 meters last season and is currently running track and cross country at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

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Colleague Zach Landres-Schnur posed an interesting question on the Seattle Times’ high school sports blog this week. The question: why isn’t college baseball as rabidly popular and profitable as football and basketball? He brings up the case of former U-Dub pitcher Tim Lincecum, who was an All-American for the Huskies and a No. 2 overall draft pick by the San Francisco Giants, but toiled in relative anonymity at Montlake before becoming a starter in San Francisco.As a self-proclaimed college baseball fanatic, let me speak to both sides of the debate.Why people don’t watch college baseball1. Too many teams, too many players.2. Not on TV enough. Until you get to the very end of the season, the only way you can watch college baseball is to pay extra per month for Fox College Sports, ESPNU or one of these niche networks.3. Not enough exposure. Although the ratings for the College World Series in Omaha go up every year, there just aren’t enough people that know about the sport.Why you should be watching college baseball1. Purity of the game. In a weird way, high school and college baseball are purer forms of the sport than Little League baseball. The college game features a lot more “smallball” nowadays that the NCAA has imposed restrictions on bat size and raised the mound to help out pitchers. No one likes to see 24-20 baseball games.2. Some of the players are really, really good. Major league GMs are leaning more and more toward older, more mature college players than raw high school draftees. The theory that college players that might have lower ceilings but are more major league ready seems to be prevailing over choosing high school players with big upside but who need 4-5 years to mature and learn the game. 

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Former Wenatchee High School three-sport athlete Brian Goff made his first appearance for the Wenatchee Valley Rams in the team’s 41-11 drubbing of Bellingham on Saturday night at Wildcat Stadium. Goff, who graduated last May after earning varsity letters in football, basketball and baseball for the Panthers, made an interception late in his Rams’ debut. Goff, who played safety for two years at Wenatchee before switching to quarterback in his senior campaign, was also a guard on the basketball team and an infielder/catcher on the baseball team.

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Panther baseball coach Ed Knaggs said Wenatchee second baseman Josh Penny will miss 1-2 weeks after suffering a Grade 2 concussion while snowboarding at Mission Ridge. Penny, who is a sponsored rider, is an instructor on the mountain. 

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A little birdie told me that Chelan’s Joe Harris, Ephrata’s Patrick Simon and Wenatchee’s Connor “Big Stick” Smith will join forces for the 3-on-3 tournament during Apple Blossom. Yowza. This Dream Team, all sophomores in 2007-08, represent a large chunk of the future of high school basketball in our valley, and should come equipped with some sort of catchy nickname. How ’bout Team Needs a Weight Room. I like it.Who do you guard? Harris, the 6-3 point guard with more moves than a dance instructor? Simon, the Washington State-bound, 6-foot-7 wing with the feathery outside touch? Or Smith, the 6-foot-6 banger down low who is poised to make The Leap for the Panthers next year. In a 3-on-3 tournament, when passing rules, these guys would seem to be unbeatable unless Kevin Durant takes his summer vacation in the Apple Capital. You know he’ll have the free time.

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Okanogan (4-1) is ranked fourth in the state among Class 1A schools, according to the polls released by the Seattle Times on April 1. Ahead of the Bulldogs in the rankings, in descending order are Naches Valley (first), Kiona-Benton and Friday Harbor.

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Was watching the Mariners-Rangers game last night when I saw a familiar face in the crowd. Yes, by gum, it was Wenatchee High School sophomore Kelsea Azurdia, daughter of Wenatchee Valley College bigwig Marco Azurdia, braving the cold and wind to watch the M’s beat Texas on Wednesday. Immediatley after coming back from commercial after the fourth inning, the FoxSports Northwest cameras panned to a tight shot of Azurdia, who played soccer and basketball for the Panthers as a freshman in 2007 before a head injury sustained late in basketball season ended her career. Azurdia stayed on to be the student manager of the girls soccer team and is a fixture at Panther sporting events.

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