By John Leggettip-sports@isspress.com

When you are the No. 1 4A high school football team in the state, used to winning games by 30-point margins, you are able to overcome just about every form of adversity, even if it’s in your imagination.

Nationally ranked Sky-line High School Spartans senior quarterback Max Browne experienced a lackluster first half by his undefeated 8-0 Skyline football squad Oct. 19, when it hosted the Is-saquah Eagles in a battle for local bragging rights. The game ended in a 21-0, Skyline victory.

Browne did not like the spectacle that unfolded

during a mediocre 24 minutes of Spartans’ foot-

ball in the first half of the annual Issaquah School

District rivalry, which saw Skyline holding a scant 7-0 advantage at intermission.

Normally Browne, who leads the KingCo 4A in passing with a 75 per-cent completion rating and has flung nearly 20 touchdowns this year, lets his actions furnish the inspiration to fire up the troops.

On this particular oc-casion, though, he let his cohorts know what was in his heart, via what must have been a motivating halftime speech.

Whatever the fiery Spartans’ signal caller had

SPORTSs s

The Issaquah Press

Page B4Wednesday

October 24, 2012

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By Lillian O’Rorkeltucker@sammamishreview.com

Several area runners are head-ing to districts after strong finishes at the Oct. 18 KingCo 4A cross country league championships.

The race to stay alive in the post season took place at West Seattle’s Lincoln Park, where 154 varsity runners vied for the top 40 finishes in the girls and boys races as only the top eight teams and top 40 individuals would qualify

for the bi-district meet.Making the cut were the Is-

saquah Eagles girls team, which finished in fourth place overall. Also qualifying were the Skyline Spartans boys team in sixth place and the girls team in seventh place.

Working to earn Issaquah that fourth-place finish was Cayla Seligman, who finished the 5,000 meter race in 19 minutes, 8.3 sec-onds to take seventh; Ellie Claw-son came in 13th at 19:19.5; and Ellie Hendrickson was the 21st to cross the finish line at 19:46.6.

“It’s been a fun season. The kids have done well. They’ve all im-proved a lot,” Issaquah’s head coach Gwen Robertson said. “My philoso-phy with cross country at the end of the season is if you’re healthy and you run well, anything can happen. And I’ve seen it happen many, many times. So far, so good.”

The Issaquah boys team may have not qualified for districts but two of its runners did make the cut. Hunter Sapienza took 25th place at 16:30.3 and Kennan Schrag came in 39th with 16:49.7.

“I was really happy with my place … I’m excited and ready to try and make it to state,” said Sapienza, who, from the time the race gun sounded, had a great race. “I sprinted the first 100 meters. You really have to get out when it’s a huge meet.”

While Skyline had three run-ners in the top 40 on the boys side and five girls finish among the top 40 in their race, the Spartans

By John Leggettip-sports@isspress.com

A handful of local golfers from Skyline and Issaquah high schools played a lot of golf in a relatively short span last week, but were rewarded for their endeav-ors when they showed up among the top 10 finishers of the Sea-King 4A District golf championships Oct. 16 and 17 at Willows Run Golf Course in Redmond.

The most consistent local to burn up the links was Issaquah freshman Zack Overstreet, who in the qual-ifying rounds on Tuesday carded 36s on the front and back nine (72), which is par for 18 holes at Willows.

The next day, which proved a bit more playable weather-wise, the excep-tional frosh newcomer to the tournament again played well for the Eagles. He out-did his earlier par score, by managing four birdies to fire a 68 and finished districts two strokes off the frontrun-ner, Eastlake’s Li Wang-138, with a two-day bottom line of 140 for 72 holes, winding up as the tourney’s silver medalist.

Meanwhile, Skyline’s Brian Mogg put together a two-day total of 146 strokes to finish fourth. Issaquah’s Bryan Jung was nipping at his heels, finishing in the top five with a 147 stroke effort.

As anticipated, a predomi-nantly senior Eastlake High School contingent, took home top team accolades with 84 points. Four of its partici-pants finished in the top 10 with two-day bottom lines of 138 (first), 146 (third), 148 (sixth) and 151 (ninth). East-lake nearly doubled up on Issaquah (43.5) and Skyline (27.5) point-wise.

Liberty placed in the 3A phase of the tour-nament seventh in the eight team KingCo 3A/2A Division with a score of 451 strokes. The winning squad in the division was Interlake with a posting of 384 strokes. Liberty did not have an individual fin-ish in the top 15.

Issaquah freshman nets silver

medal

It was Liberty High School’s turn to face the juggernaut that is Wolverine football when the Patriots went on the road to play Bellevue on Oct. 19.

While the Patriots fell to Bellevue, 49-11, they were the first team in the state to put up more than 10 points on the Wolverines this season, behind a Josh Johnson field goal and a score by Tynan Gilmore, as well as a 2-point conver-sion.

Heading into the game, the team knew it was a tough test, going up against a Bellevue team that is ranked among the best in the nation, Liberty coach Steve Valach said.

“That’s a formidable op-ponent, and we talk about playing hard for 48 min-utes, playing together, and I think for the most part we did that,” he said.

The Patriots are now 3-5 on the season and will host Mount Si on Oct.26.

Local golfers also take fourth, fifth at district finals

Patriots can’t stop Bellevue

BY GREG FARRAR

Megan Chucka, Allie Wood and Sarah Bliesner (from left), Liberty High School runners, recover their breath after finishing second, fourth and eighth to help the Patriots win the school’s first-ever team girls KingCo 3A Cross Country Championship Oct. 19 at Lake Sammamish State Park.

By Christina Corrales-Toynewcastle@isspress.com

When a key contributor from last year’s Liberty High School girls cross country team went down with an injury before the season, head coach Mike Smith was understand-ably crushed.

“You know we had really high hopes to do better than last year, and to lose one of your better run-ners was really upsetting,” he said.

While Amy Broska’s talent and leadership were missed this season, it didn’t stop the Patriots from capturing the 2012 KingCo 3A cross country title Oct. 18 at Lake Sammamish State Park.

Liberty defeated defending KingCo champs Mercer Island by 28 points to capture the school’s first KingCo cross country title. It was a sweet victory for the Patri-

ots, who lost to Mercer Island in a tiebreaker at last year’s event.

Led by senior standout Megan Chucka, the Patriots finished the 3.1-mile race with a team average time of 19 minutes, 49 seconds.

Chucka placed second and ran one of the fastest Patriot finals ever with a time of 19:19. The perfor-mance was just another notch in what has been a dominant year for the senior leader.

“Megan has been great,” Smith said. “She’s just pretty much put it on her shoulders that she was just going to take the team back to state and do better this year.”

But it took a true team effort to capture the title, and Liberty’s depth shined through at the event.

In addition to Chucka’s second-

Skyline runners power into cross country districts

Liberty girls win KingCo 3A cross country titleROAD WARRIORS

BY GREG FARRAR

Megan Chucka, Liberty High School senior, strains the final yards to a 19-minute, 19-second, second-place finish.See LIBERTY, Page B5

See RUNNERS, Page B5

BY GREG FARRAR

Jack Gellatly (5), Issaquah High School junior running back, is shaken up by a late hit from Skyline’s Blake Young (left) while being pulled down by the jersey by Jack Valencia during the third quarter.

Spartans blank Issaquah, 21-0, in battle of rivals

See FOOTBALL, Page B5