Vote now for The News Tribune's Boys Athlete of the Week (May 5 to 10)
The poll is located below. You can read about all of the candidates and their accomplishments below.
Note: If you are not seeing the poll at the bottom of the story, try opening the story in a different browser, such as Chrome or Safari. Votes emailed will not be counted.
Want to nominate a South Sound high school athlete in the future? Email reporter Jon Manley (jon.manley@thenewstribune.com) or Tyler Wicke (twicke@thenewstribune.com) or send a direct message on Twitter/X (@manley_tnt or @WickeTyler) with the athlete's first and last name, school, year, position and a stat line from game(s) during the past week. Nominations must be submitted by 5 p.m. Sunday.
Noah Chavira, Cascade Christian baseball — Third baseman went 2-for-2 with two walks, two RBI and two runs scored in 13-1 win over East Jefferson on Wednesday.
Cole Chiechi, Enumclaw baseball — Hornets' leadoff hitter went 2-for-4, drove in a run and scored a pair of runs in 10-7 win over Federal Way on Tuesday.
Reece Colbert, Charles Wright/Life Christian baseball — Shortstop went 3-for-4 with an RBI and three runs scored in 8-1 win over Vashon Island on Monday.
Gavin Dolan, Capital baseball — Leadoff hitter went 3-for-3 with three runs scored in 7-5 loss to Gig Harbor on Monday.
Silas Duerre, Olympia baseball — Bears catcher hit the walk-off single in the 10th inning of Tuesday's 4-3 win over Yelm, securing fourth place in the 4A SPSL tournament.
Cooper Hordyk, Curtis baseball — Sophomore threw a complete-game shutout in Wednesday's third-place game in the 4A SPSL tournament, blanking Emerald Ridge over seven strong (7 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K).
Jason Hugo, Steilacoom baseball — In Steilacoom's league-title clinching 8-2 win over Clover Park on Wednesday, tossed six innings, allowed eight hits, two runs and struck out 10.
Adam Jay, Tahoma baseball — In 16-1 win over Auburn on Tuesday, went 3-for-4 with four RBI and two runs scored at the plate. On the mound, tossed four innings, allowing six hits, a run, walking two and striking out five.
Ryder Jensen, Orting baseball — Shortstop went 2-for-4 with two RBI, a walk and three runs scored in 14-2 win over Eatonville on Wednesday.
Cole Krilich, Gig Harbor baseball — The right fielder's walk-off, two-run home run lifted Gig Harbor to the 3A Puget Sound League championship in Monday's title game over Capital, 7-5.
Harvey Lieberman, Kennedy Catholic baseball — Lancers' starter tossed seven innings in 3-1 win over Stadium on Tuesday, allowing four hits, one run, one walk and striking out five.
Jake Miller, Sumner baseball — The sophomore's game-winning, three-run home run in the sixth inning lifted the Spartans over Emerald Ridge, 4-2, in Tuesday's 4A SPSL semifinals. Miller reached in all three plate appearances, finishing 1-for-1 with two walks and three RBI.
Kaeden Morgan, Auburn Riverside baseball — Junior left-hander silenced Kentwood in Monday's 2-1 win, allowing five hits and one unearned run with three walks and six strikeouts.
Mason Pike, Puyallup baseball — Senior right-hander threw a five-inning shutout in Tuesday's playoff win over Curtis, allowing two hits and three walks with nine strikeouts in an 11-0 win. Pike went 2-for-4 with two RBI in Wednesday's 4A SPSL championship, an 11-7 win over Sumner.
Jacob Powell, Franklin Pierce baseball — Went 3-for-4 with three RBI and a run scored in 11-1 win over Washington on Wednesday.
Quinncey Ratteray, Graham-Kapowsin baseball — Junior right-hander threw four shutout innings and earned the win in Tuesday's 3-0 win over Rogers, pushing the Eagles into the district tournament. Ratteray allowed three hits and four walks (zero runs) with four strikeouts.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Kevin Trapp set for Paris return
With this reinforcement, the promoted club hopes to secure its goal and aim for a solid start to the season. Kevin Trapp set for Paris return Kevin Trapp, former Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper, is heading back to the French capital, but this time he'll be wearing the Paris FC colors. At 35, the German shot-stopper leaves Eintracht Frankfurt, where he spent six seasons, to join the newly promoted Ligue 1 side. The transfer has been confirmed by Sky: Trapp will sign a contract through 2028, and the club will pay just one million euros for his services. This return to Paris marks a fresh chapter for the keeper, who previously wore the PSG shirt from 2015 to 2019. In Germany, Trapp has earned nine caps for the national team and remains renowned for his experience and reliability between the posts. For Paris FC, this signing is a major coup. Trapp's experience is expected to bring stability and confidence to a promoted side determined to make its mark in Ligue 1 as quickly as possible.
New York Times
6 days ago
- New York Times
Giovanni Leoni: Italy's next great defensive hope is ready to learn from Virgil van Dijk at Liverpool
It was winter in the Spanish capital. Fabio Cannavaro was leaving Real Madrid's training ground when a stranger flagged him down. An autograph hunter, he thought. A piece of paper was produced from a pocket. But there was no pen to apply the accompanying signature. Instead, he was presented with what turned out to be a business card. Cannavaro saw the red lettering of France Football, the magazine behind the Ballon d'Or. Their reporter asked if he could get in the Italian defender's car. He was insistent. The vote for that year's award was happening in real time and a tipping point had been reached. Advertisement He thought Cannavaro was going to win. Cannavaro thought it was a joke. This was 2006 and, only a few months earlier, Cannavaro had captained his country to World Cup final glory. Still, he didn't think much of his chances. Zinedine Zidane's red card in that final gave him a shot. But a defender had never won the award, given to the world's best footballer over the previous year (and none have since). Franco Baresi had come second in 1989, Paolo Maldini 'only' third in 1994. But it was to be different for Cannavaro. During that tournament in Germany, he earned the nickname 'The Berlin Wall'. As the fourth and, so far, final Italian to collect the Ballon d'Or and the most recent man to skipper the country's national team to victory at a World Cup, Cannavaro is often asked about Italy's travails. Why have they gone from winning the greatest tournament of all to not even qualifying for the finals in 2018 and 2022? On some occasions, he has been critical: Italy has lost itself. It has tried to be different when it does not need to be ashamed of its football DNA. In others, he has been more diplomatic: football is cyclical and, sooner or later, a new generation will bring renewed competitiveness. Giovanni Leoni, the Parma centre-back on his way to Liverpool for an initial £26million ($35.3m), was born less than a month after Cannavaro was presented with the Ballon d'Or in November 2006, so he is too young to have seen him in his prime. Aged only three when Italy's defence of their title ended in a bottom-of-the-table and winless group-stage exit from South Africa 2010 (a point below New Zealand), he was seven when they made it to their most recent World Cup in Brazil, again going out after three first-phase games, beating England but losing to Uruguay and Costa Rica. In truth, producing defenders such as Leoni has never been an issue for Italy in the meantime. It's the Baggios, Tottis, Vieris and Del Pieros they have lacked. Advertisement Leoni, who after only 14 starts in Serie A is already being hastily talked about as a future captain of Italy, grew up in the era of the BBC defence — Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini — at Juventus. They have been succeeded by Alessandro Bastoni and a late bloomer in Francesco Acerbi as a pair at Inter. It has been a time of European Championship finals lost (2012) and won (2021) and Italian back lines being the bedrock of Champions League runners-up in 2015, 2017, 2023 and 2025. Only one of those great centre-backs played outside of Italy going into their peak years. The reason for that is quite simple. For many Italians, it doesn't get any bigger than playing for one of their country's big three. Few stages are greater than San Siro. Few clubs, historically, guarantee you success like Juventus. Cannavaro, for instance, only moved to Madrid on the back of that World Cup, the Calciopoli scandal and Juventus' subsequent relegation. Chiellini and Bonucci departed Turin in their twilight years for experiences in Los Angeles (for Chiellini) and Berlin then Istanbul. The exception is Barzagli, and it's Barzagli to whom one Italian sporting director, speaking on the condition of anonymity, compares Leoni. A squad player at that 2006 World Cup and a member of the Wolfsburg team that upset the odds to win the German Bundesliga three years later, the Tuscan heart-throb, now a pundit and wine-maker, was Andrea Agnelli's favourite signing throughout his chairmanship of Juventus — and not just because he cost as little as €300,000 (£258,000; $350,000 at the curent rates) in January 2011. Chiellini and Bonucci were already at the club when Barzagli arrived a few months before his 30th birthday. Juventus were floundering, finishing seventh for a second season running, and wouldn't start a nine-year Scudetto winning streak until Antonio Conte was appointed and Andrea Pirlo arrived from Milan on a free that summer. Advertisement But within Juventus, Barzagli continues to be recognised as a foundational piece. He is lesser spotted than Chiellini and Bonucci, and yet both credit him with making them better centre-backs. Both bow to him. When Barzagli retired in 2019, Juventus' manager at the time, Max Allegri, called him 'the professor of defenders'. It chimed nicely with Jose Mourinho's comment about the club being the Harvard of defending. And so for Leoni to draw comparisons with Barzagli at only 18 is no faint praise. It is rare for the big three in Italy to let a talent like him get away, and perhaps there is a parallel to be drawn with Marco Verratti here. Paris Saint-Germain gazumped Juventus in 2012 and Verratti, then a 19-year-old at second-division Pescara, never looked back. Is that what's happening with Leoni? On the one hand, the powerlessness to stop his move reflects the financial state of Serie A and the gulf in spending power between Italy's elite and their English peers. Serie A clubs have spent €860million (£742m; $1bn) gross so far this summer. A fair amount. Premier League teams, though, have cut cheques for nearly €2.4bn… At the same time, better choices could have been made by the domestic candidates for Leoni's signature. For example, the commitment made by Juventus' old sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli to sign Lloyd Kelly from Newcastle is one to rue. In that they only have themselves to blame. On the other hand, England is no longer the road less travelled for Italian players. It is more and more the direction of travel, especially for the young. If, like Leoni, Cannavaro had been playing for Parma in 2025 instead of 2002, his next move would probably have been to the Premier League, not Inter. The financial pull is too great but, regardless of the economics at play, it is where up-and-coming Italians are being encouraged to test themselves. When champions Italy were eliminated from Euro 2024 at the round-of-16 stage last summer, their coach at the time, Luciano Spalletti, said if the opportunity presents itself to go abroad, particularly to England, then Italians need to seize it. They'll be better for it, he argued, such is the standard and competitiveness. Flash forward 13 months and the Premier League has never been able to count on so many. Sandro Tonali, Riccardo Calafiori, Federico Chiesa, Michael Kayode, Luca Koleosho, Wilfried Gnonto, Diego Coppola, Guglielmo Vicario, Destiny Udogie. Maybe Gianluigi Donnarumma soon. This should be a source of optimism in their homeland. Advertisement Kayode, who got the only goal of the final when Italy won the Under-19 Euros two years ago, was an under-the-radar signing by Brentford from Fiorentina on an initial loan in January. Coppola, a 21-year-old who plays the same position as Leoni, has been picked up this summer by Brighton. Both signing clubs are renowned for talent identification. As for Liverpool, well, their reputation in that regard precedes them. Leoni's rise, it must be said, has been stratospheric — so rapid, he has played just eight times for Italy at youth levels. He is the son of a banker and a physiotherapist, who both played water polo to a high level. One of his brothers, Edoardo, has followed in their wet footsteps and also competes in that sport in Italy's second division. A sporty family, they fostered a basketball player, Mahamadou Diarra, who made it onto their local professional team, Petrarca. Leoni is their only footballer. He made his debut for Padova, then in the third tier, at 16, showing himself to be even more precocious than Alessandro Del Piero, the future Italy great who came through at the same club as a teenager in the very early 1990s. One of Leoni's role models around then was Smalldini. No, not Paolo Maldini, who he never saw play. For the uninitiated, 'Smalldini' is the nickname bestowed upon Chris Smalling during the Englishman's head-anything-that-comes-into-the-box phase with Roma at the start of this decade. The other? One of his new team-mates at Anfield, a certain Virgil van Dijk. Even amid their current dysfunction, Sampdoria spotted Leoni early and snapped him up in February last year. Pirlo, their coach at the time, quickly brought him into a promotion-chasing first team where Leoni, benefiting from some injuries to more senior players, partnered 22-year-old Daniele Ghilardi. Although Sampdoria didn't go up that summer, Leoni and Ghilardi did. One joining Parma, the other Verona. Ghilardi played more regularly last season, next to the aforementioned Coppola. They clocked up more than 2,000 Serie A minutes each; Leoni, by contrast, scraped to just over a thousand in 17 appearances. For now, Coppola is the only one of them to have been capped at senior level, but neither of the Verona duo made the impression Leoni did when he established himself in the Parma team under Fabio Pecchia, then stayed here when Cristian Chivu took over in February. Leoni stood out for defending one-v-one and winning duels in big open spaces. Advertisement Such was the impression he made in a short space of time, it came as no surprise when Chivu, a former centre-back himself, expressed his desire to bring the kid with him to Inter, where he replaced Simone Inzaghi there earlier this summer. While Leoni can improve in terms of guile and edge in his own penalty area, the prevailing sense is that he has what it takes to partner Bastoni at international level in the near future. No doubt, the likes of Arsenal's Calafiori and Alessandro Buongiorno at Napoli will have something to say about that. Both of them, unfortunately for them, are injury-prone. Leoni, so far, is not. In moving to Liverpool, the talented teenager addresses both immediate and long-term needs; a combination that perhaps makes it the ideal time and place for him to develop and learn from one of his heroes, a now 34-year-old Van Dijk. Leoni means Lions in Italian. It is a surname that calls to mind one of the most famous (now defunct) ultras groups in Italy, the Fossa dei Leoni at Milan, which translates as The Lions' Den. We'll have to see if that's what Liverpool's penalty area becomes in the Leoni era: a place to fear, a place nobody gets near. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Yahoo
Harry Redknapp crowns Celtic champions already as Rangers told they have new rivals
Harry Redknapp reckons the resurgence of Hearts and Hibs might be something for Rangers to worry about this season. But not so much for Celtic who he believes will be miles ahead of the rest. Both capital clubs have started the season strongly and new Hearts owner Tony Bloom has made it clear he is in Scotland to take the fight to the Old Firm – predicting the Jambos will win a title within the next decade. READ MORE: I wasn't at Rangers level and Celtic brutally exposed me – Russell Martin will find it tough READ MORE: The Celtic chief will remain in hiding as the boss tries to deal with tight-fisted change of stance – Keith Jackson Hibs are quietly going about their business and a decent start in the league plus an eye-catching Conference League result against Partizan Belgrade has them feeling good about the season ahead. Redknapp still believes Celtic and Rangers will be the top two this season with the Hoops crowned champions come May. But he believes the Edinburgh sides may just have enough about them to 'push' Rangers in the fight for second. The former Tottenham boss, speaking exclusively with BetVictor Casino, said: 'It's great to see Tony Bloom get involved. I love what he's achieved at Brighton. I'm sure he'll do great at Hearts and Hibs are the same. The Bournemouth owners, they're invested in Hibs and they've done amazing. 'Hibs had a great year last year finishing third and they've had a win in Europe already, away from home in the first leg. Hibs are another good team. Hearts and Hibs have a big rivalry. 'I mean they're the two teams that could push Rangers. They're not going to push Celtic. I think Celtic will still probably be the team. "But Russell Martin's gone to Rangers. They had a great result in Europe again. He'll have them playing a brand of football that he loves to play, with possession. He's a confident guy. "Russell Martin, he wants what he wants and he sticks to his beliefs and I think that be enough if they get the right players in, they are a great club. 'People don't realise just how big those two clubs are. Celtic and Rangers, two of the biggest clubs in the world. There's an incredible fanbase all over the world. 'But, Hearts and Hibs are the two teams this year that could challenge, I think it'll be Celtic and Rangers one and two again, and Hearts and Hibs will probably battle out for third place.'
