One Tri-Cities team is ranked No. 1 in new Washington high school football standings

Richland’s Liberty Christian School is a No.1-ranked team in the most recent rankings for Washington Interscholastic Activities Association football.

The Patriots (4-0) are the top 1B team in the 8-man ranks.

Joining them in the Top 10 is their rival DeSales (4-0) at No. 9. The two rivals meet at the end of the regular season.

The Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) rankings are a formula used to help seed the teams who qualify for the state football playoffs, which begin in November.

In Class 4A, Camas is the top team in the first rankings, while Chiawana is our region’s top squad at No. 11.

Bellarmine is No. 1 in the 3A rankings, with Kennewick sitting at No. 7.

In the 1A list, La Center is No. 1, while Royal is fifth.

The other two No. 1 teams are Tumwater (Class 2A) and Asotin (2B).

▪ On Oct. 1, the WIAA announced the brackets for the state football playoffs.

Only Class 1A did not get a 16-team bracket. That’s because a number of 1A schools around the state had to drop their football programs this fall for various reasons. That caused the number of schools to drop below the 44-school threshold needed for the 16-team brackets.

Instead, 1A gets a 12-team state bracket, with the top four seeds earning a first-round bye.

The other five classifications — 4A, 3A, 2A, 2B and 1B — get 16-team brackets for state.

College basketball

Pasco High grad Kris Groce has a deep resume when it comes to basketball.

The former guard played collegiately at Hawaii, Sacramento State and Eastern Oregon before joining the coaching ranks.

Groce has been an assistant coach for men’s basketball teams at EOU, Cal State University — Monterrey Bay, and Central Washington University.

Then he switched over to coaching women’s basketball, with stops at Wenatchee Valley College and Taft College.

In August, Groce got his first head coaching gig. He’ll run the Copper Mountain College women’s program in the California Junior College ranks.

▪ Kamiakin senior Aubrey Herrin took care of her college plans this summer when she announced last month that she will play women’s basketball next year for the University of Portland.

Herrin has been a standout the past two seasons for the Braves girls basketball team with her ability to leap high for rebounds and blocked shots.

Herrin is also a state-caliber athlete in track and field in the jumps (high jump and triple jump) as well as in the sprint relays.

She was part of Kamiakin’s first-place girls 4x200 relay at the state championships back in May. As a sophomore, she was on the second-place 4x200 relay team at state; and she has finished second in the triple jump each of the past two years.

Baseball

Hanford High grad Hudson Shupe is back at Gonzaga University this fall playing baseball for the Bulldogs.

Now a junior, Shupe spent the summer playing for the Orleans Firebirds in the Cape Cod League, where he hit .310 (40 hits in 129 at bats), had 11 RBIs and scored 21 runs.

Shupe (who played his true freshman season at Seattle University before transferring to GU in 2023) played five positions for Orleans over the summer: second base, third base, and all three outfield positions.

College cross country

Hanford grads Mia Beightol and Kennedy Taylor are members this fall of the Clark College women’s cross country team. They will also compete for the Penguins in track and field next spring.

Beightol, in fact, won her very first college race on Aug. 31 at the Puget Sound Invitational at the University of Puget Sound.

The freshman covered the 5K course in 19 minutes and 55.0 seconds.

Taylor finished eighth in 21:13.2. There were 55 competitors in the event.

Sunnyside grad Elijah Cisneros is a member of Clark’s men’s cross country team. Cisneros is a freshman.

Prep volleyball

The WIAA released its first RPI rankings this week for volleyball, and Walla Walla Valley Academy is No. 1 in Class 1B, while DeSales is No. 9.

What we’ve seen so far in the Mid-Columbia Conference is that there is no clear-cut favorite this season like there was with Kamiakin last year (in which the Braves ran the table with a 16-0 conference record).

But, the MCC has six of its nine teams with a .500 record or better.

As of Wednesday, Hermiston is in first place with a 6-1 record, with Kamiakin and Kennewick at 5-1 each, followed by Richland at 4-2, and Chiawana and Walla Walla both at 3-3.

Kamiakin is the MCC’s highest ranking team in Class 4A at No. 13, while Kennewick holds the No. 13 ranking in the 3A list.

Here are the current No. 1 teams in all classification RPI rankings: Camas (4A), West Seattle (3A), Burlington-Edison (2A), Cedar Park Christian of Bothell (1A), Adna (2B), and of course, WWVA (1B).

Prep track and field

Winning a state championship is memorable, no matter what sport it’s in.

That’s why Eric Hisaw, the head coach for the Walla Walla High School boys and girls track and field teams, decided to order state championship rings for those who wanted them.

In May, Hisaw’s Blue Devils girls team ran away with the 3A team title.

So he wanted to honor the achievement with rings for those who wanted them.

“Kids and families chose to buy one or not,” said Hisaw. “We couldn’t pay for them, for the kids darn it. But about 80% of our state qualifiers ordered one. And 4 staff did. You know I was going to!