R-C Sports Notebook: Freshman girls enjoy historic week

Douglas High, long the bridesmaid, rarely the bride when it came to the country club sports in the Northern 4A, turned the regional hierarchy on its side last week.

Bethany Wurster and Amelia Ritger can be considered similar in many respects.

Each of them red-haired, soft-spoken, methodic and unflappable, they entered their respective season expecting to make some waves around the region.

However, it's doubtful that anyone expected them to do what they did.

Wurster was the sparkplug that propelled a young but already seasoned girls' golf team to an immaculate undefeated regular season.

Ritger calmly dismantled her entire freshman slate, wrapping up her regular season having won all 28 of her matches without having faced any true serious challenge.

Wurster won the regional individual golf title on Wednesday by sinking clutch birdies on her final three holes and in the process led the Lady Tigers to their first regional team title in 15 years as Douglas won the tournament by nearly 80 strokes. Through the first day of the state championships, she had the Tigers in position to claim their first-ever state title.

Ritger didn't lose a single set in her regional tournament, despite drawing the tougher side of the bracket. She dismantled finesse players, power players and combo players alike with disturbingly tranquil composure and surgical precision, powering ahead to the regional title on Saturday without ever having to actually break out any kind of power game.

As her longtime friend and rival Hannah Llop made a push late in the second set of the regional title match to draw within 5-4, a spectator casually muttered "It's going to three sets."

Not in this match. Not with Ritger playing. Impervious to tension, she won four of five points to claim the title. Momentum never even entered the picture. It might not have been present all season.

Wurster's title is believed to be the first by a Tiger female in golf.

Ritger's was the first at Douglas since 1989 when phenom Lisa Chacon won it all.

Within four days of each other, the duo erased more than 30 years of combined history.

And at the end of the day, they're still just freshman. We get three more seasons to see what each girl is capable of in her respective sport.

A reporter in Reno wrote last week that North Valleys' Chris Castellanos should run wild on the Tigers' defense.

Sure, Castellanos entered the game as the region's top rusher, but someone must have forgot along the way that Douglas brought the top total defense in as well.

At the time, the Tigers were allowing 138.25 yards per game on the ground, which is by no means dominating. But it's not running wild either. Those numbers included games from four of the region's top 10 rushers (Two of the remaining six were Castellanos and Douglas' own Brock Peterson).

Take into account also that the Tigers were surrendering only 88 yards per game through the air. That means that all anyone has really been able to do to any extent against the Tiger defense is run. When teams are putting the ball on the ground for an average of 39.9 carries a game, allowing just 140 yards is pretty darn good.

In the end, Castellanos didn't run wild at all. He carried the ball four times for 12 yards before leaving with a leg injury.

The same publication also said the big matchup of the night would be between Castellanos and Peterson.

Sure both players are among the elite running backs in the region, but the simple fact is that they are never on the field at the same time. They don't match up at all.

The real matchup is between the back and the defense. Even more so, it's the back and the offensive line against the defense.

North Valleys, by the way, was very talented across the line (I heard the same about their junior varsity and freshman squads). That group hasn't gotten even near enough credit for Castellanos' success this season. Even after he left, the line still helped the Panther backs to some very hard-earned yardage.

Peterson ended up running for 221 yards and three touchdowns. But that doesn't mean he won the "matchup."

It just means that the Tiger defense was sharper than the Panther offense and the Panther defense couldn't find an answer for what the Tigers were doing on offense.

Just one of my silly pet peeves for you.

Peterson has an outside shot by season's end to take a crack at the single-season rushing record.

His total of 1,010 so far is still 935 yards short of Spike Agosta's record year in 2004, but if the Tigers were to win a first-round playoff game, he'll at least have a shot to get close.

He'd have to average 233.75 yards out each game if Douglas were able to win in the first round " in other words, he'd have to set a career high every game for the next four weeks " to match Agosta's total.

Stranger things have happened, though.

As good as Peterson has been, it was the offensive line that really shined on Friday night.

This group is among the best that have come through here in quite a while and they put on a blocking clinic against North Valleys.

They've made a pretty strong case that they are among the elite units in the region, if not the best. We'll get a better picture once the playoffs come around.

Tackles Trevor McCarthy and Parker Robertson have been improving every week and the interior line of center Mike Colyer and guards Jordan Volk and Curtis Hartzell have really opened things up in the middle of the field.

Having two towers at tight end in Jeff Nady (6-7) and Kevin Emm (6-4) can't hurt either.

Peterson has started to evoke images of former University of Nevada and Tonopah standout Chance Kretschmer.

The kid is pretty darn slippery. He bounces off of tackles, is almost never brought down at the initial point of contact and he always manages to fall forward. He can finish off the run too. At least once a game, he takes two or three tacklers with him for an extra couple of yards.

If you haven't gotten out to see him yet, try to do so before the season is over.

Some criticism is mounting across the region about the narrow soccer configuration of Keith "Duke" Roman Field at Douglas High School.

After the Douglas boys' soccer team's upset win over Carson on Keith "Duke" Roman Field Monday night, the Carson coach had plenty to say criticizing the field.

He rightfully mentioned that it is difficult to set up a passing game, or any kind of attack, because the field is so narrow (It comes in right on the league minimum of 55 yards). We've heard a number of other opposing coaches echo those thoughts.

In response, Douglas' Milko Vasquez pointed out that each team knew what was coming and there was no reason to not develop a game plan around it.

He's right. There's no reason during practice that a coach can't line up a bunch of cones down each sideline to narrow the field and develop a game plan inside of that.

Criticizing the size of a soccer field is like attempting to do the same in baseball. Sure, some outfield fences may be too shallow " or too deep " for a team's liking, but both teams still have to play in the same park.

Field dimensions are left flexible by the governing body, so a team can't rightly be criticized for falling within the required width. Different dimensions simply bring a different character to the game.

Wider dimensions in soccer will favor a team with better passing and better conditioning. So that's what you work on heading into that game.

A narrower field will present more vertical movement. A more opportunistic team will take better advantage of the few free shots that present themselves. If everyone is bunched into one part of the field, that means another part is open. A team that can finagle a game plan out of the constrained proportions will obviously have the advantage.

Douglas seems to have been able to find that game plan as they are unbeaten in three contests on the turf.

My take is simply that the narrower field makes for a pretty entertaining game And that's just what Monday night's tilt was.

Based on the cumulative votes in the Sierra Nevada Sports Media poll, here are the top-ranked overall athletic programs based on football, boys' soccer, girls' soccer and volleyball so far this season.

1. Douglas, 152 points

2. Galena, 124 points

3T. Reno, 123 points

3T. Reed, 123 points

5. Truckee, 122 points