Gorge Sports roundup for Nov. 24
Winter season previews from throughout the Gorge, league honors and more
Just five months after the high school boys basketball schedule concluded in the spring, area teams returned to the hardwood Nov. 15 for the first day of practice in preparation for the more traditional winter season beginning the first week of December.
A large group of area players earned special recognition for their performances on the court and were selected for Big Sky all-league awards at the conclusion of the OSAA Class 1A volleyball season Nov. 6.
The Dalles High’s Kennedy Abbas led Gorge-area selections to the 2021 Intermountain Conference all-league volleyball team.
A definition of relevancy in high school boys basketball: Good teams schedule non-league games against you because they want to play better competition, not because they want an easy win; or, they schedule you because a win or a loss won’t adversely affect their power ranking.
Either way, the Hood River Valley boys hoops program, under seventh-year Coach Christopher Dirks, is relevant once again.
Hood River Valley girls basketball Coach Steve Noteboom said the process continues to improve the skill level of Eagle players — in order to get them ready to play in the competitive Intermountain Conference.
Following a short, 10-game spring season that concluded in June, The Dalles High Riverhawks girls basketball team is back on the hardwood floor preparing for the upcoming Class 5A season.
To say the Hood River Valley girls swim team is built for a district championship is an understatement. The Eagles have the numbers — a requisite for district-meet success — and they have talent, which obviously helps, as well.
It’s commonly known in any athletic endeavor that there’s strength in numbers. For The Dalles High Riverhawk wrestling team, that’s certainly the case this season, as they have one of the largest group of athletes participating they’ve seen in many years.
This year has certainly been unusual for high school athletes in more ways than one. It wasn’t that long ago — five months — that area basketball squads finished their short spring season. Now, another one is starting, as teams began practice Nov. 15.
