Beaver Nation, 

I hope everyone has been able to stay somewhat dry during the Spring 2017 Monsoon season!  I knew it rained when we moved to Seattle, but many have told me this has been a bit more than normal…what a relief! (Finding dry fields has been an interesting task!)

Our teams are wrapping up a successful season, working their way through adversity with injuries, scheduling difficulties, and the like.  I’ve been impressed with the camaraderie I’ve seen amongst our programs and am excited to continue working with so many great athletes, parents and coaches.

• Our Men’s Lacrosse team finished their regular season undefeated and secured a first round playoff win against Bethel on Saturday.  They will continue against Bellevue on Friday! 
• Softball finished the Metro tournament strong with a 4 home run outing to take 3rd and advance to the SeaKing District 2 bracket starting on Tuesday, May 13.  The Lady Beavers will take on the winner of Lake Washington or Chief Sealth for a shot to advance to State! 
• Our Men’s Soccer team fought through late season injuries and played with a lot of tenacity, falling just short of advancing to the SeaKing tournament.  Coach Wardlaw and crew have done an excellent job of coaching up our kids through adversity this season.
• Tennis wrapped up Metros last week with several wins in the early rounds.  Val Boyanov moves on to SeaKing this week with a match on Tuesday morning – Good luck to Val! 
• Baseball and Women’s Lacrosse both continued to build experience with young teams this year.  A major highlight of the spring for me and my family was traveling down to SafeCo to watch the Beavers defeat Highline 4-0 under the roof.  What an awesome experience! 
• Track is continuing on to Districts as well, qualifying 5 men, and 9 women plus several of our relays.  James Konugres continued to run faster than I can drive and was crowned the Metro Champion in the 3200 meters with a time of 9:26!  There were some great individual performances on the track this weekend and I’m looking forward to seeing some state hardware in 2 weeks!

While we still have 2 weeks remaining in the spring season, I wanted to take a minute to let you know some of the things we have been working on for the future - namely our Athletic Development program. 

This fall we are working towards rolling out an all-sports strength and conditioning program.  In my experience, it is very hard to specialize by sport in a Strength and Conditioning programs at the high school level, and truly not a necessity.  The ability to move quickly and have flexibility and power in the hips is standard across all sports.  While we will see gains in strength for those that commit themselves, the biggest value comes in the ability to focus on little details (such as getting your elbows up, not choking the bar, etc), and the solidarity across sports and what it means to be a Ballard Athlete.  Please stay tuned for specifics.

We are working on setting up a form of direct communication for Ballard Athletes.  While Twitter/Facebook/etc are very popular forms of publishing information, direct texting ensures that each athlete gets program information when needed.  With that in mind, we have set up a Remind.com group to send out important reminders to parents and athletes.  It will be a work in progress; but the intent is to communicate items like grade check reminders, paperwork deadlines, etc.  If you would like to be added, please text “@beaverath" to “81010" – easy!

While we still have the rest of spring and the summer to enjoy, I also wanted to clue you in to our Homecoming date.  This fall we will be hosting the West Seattle Wildcats on Saturday, September 30th.  Coach Humphries and company have been working hard this off-season and would love nothing more than a full event for the game.  Mark your calendars and get ready to bring the noise this fall!

I wanted to, one last time, thank everyone for the warm reception my family has experienced.  So many parents have approached us to welcome us to the school and area.  If you get to meet my young kids, you’ll know quickly as they show and tell you about their Ballard gear that they are proud to be in the Beaver family!  It truly is Always Great to be a Beaver!

Cheers!

Jason Thurston

Girls Lacrosse

With the last Varsity game on May 6, and the last JV game on May 8, the girls lacrosse team wrapped up the 2017 season.

Both teams finished strong with several impressive team performances including a sweep over Curtis in our double header and a great win over Holy Names in our senior's last game!

Varsity finished with a 6-6 record, and just narrowly missed a trip to the postseason (ranked #18 in state). With only four seniors, the team looks to build on this year's success in 2018.

Best of luck to our seniors -- we'll miss you!