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The 2010 Jack Tracks Awards
Here are the second annual Jack Tracks Awards, otherwise known as The Flanys:
Team of the Year
This one's actually an easy call. It was clear that the Quincy High School boys soccer team stood out among the rest of the Jackrabbit squads during the 2009-10 school year. The program is strong in just about every conceivable area - numbers (it had over 100 athletes turn out this year), tradition (it has been competitive every year since its inception in 1998), coaching and talent. There's no doubt that Quincy is becoming a soccer town, and the sustained success of this program has a lot to do with that fact. This team may have been the program's best; the Jackrabbits captured the Central Washington Athletic Conference title, losing just one game along the way, then won its first-ever district championship with a victory over Toppenish. Along the way, they captured the attention of soccer followers in the area by soundly defeating two 4A Big Nine teams, Wenatchee and Eastmont, in back-to-back games. The fact that the team somehow lost its first-round state game to Cheney 1-0 should do absolutely nothing to tarnish the legacy of this squad moving forward. In state games and elimination contests, fluky things can sometimes happen. In fact, there wasn't much doubt about which team was better on the pitch that day. An assistant coach from Cheney even wrote a letter to the Quincy Valley Post-Register after the game that lauded the skilled play of the Jackrabbits and admitted that Quincy outplayed Cheney. It wasn't the ending that coach Tom Turner and his team wanted, but they should be very proud of the season they had. Winner: Boys soccer team.
Coach of the Year
Stephen Wallace, a fierce competitor to the bone, probably won't tell you that he was too excited about the QHS football team's three-win campaign, but inside he has to know that he was able to help the program make significant gains in his first year as the team's head coach. He was hired late last spring and as a result had to play catch-up from the very beginning, but by the time the season started, the team looked prepared, motivated and focused. The Jackrabbits still lack the speed and strength to compete with the conference's big boys, but anyone who watched their games last year could see that Wallace had the team ready to compensate for their shortcomings, and the improvement showed up not necessarily in victories, but in the scores of their games. Even in their losses, the Jackrabbits were competitive against teams that they probably shouldn't have been hanging with. That's a testament to coaching, pure and simple. He had his players believing they could win, and that in itself is a monumental step in the right direction. Wallace had success in his previous stop at Bridgeport High School with a gimmick offense - the flexbone - and installed it at QHS. Going forward, it's going to be exciting to see what Wallace can do to help the team break through to the upper tier of the conference. In his first year, he showed that he has the ingenuity and intelligence to do just that, and that's why he's the Jack Tracks coach of the year. Winner: Stephen Wallace. Runners-up: Tom Turner, Greg Martinez.
Male Athlete of the Year
Wooo boy. This is a tough one. There are several extremely deserving candidates. Cody Beaumont, the winner of this award last year, had another outstanding campaign, placing fifth in the 100-meter breaststroke with a personal-best at the state swimming championships and earning all-conference first-team honors on the soccer pitch as the boys soccer team's goaltender. Luke Grigg emerged as the boys basketball team's No. 1 scoring option in his first full varsity season and excelled as a member of the track and field team, qualifying for state in the hurdles and taking a third-place state medal in the pole vault. But in the end, this award has to go to Breck Webley. The senior started off the year with a breakthrough season as a member of the football team. As the starting fullback in Wallace's flexbone offense, he ran for over 200 yards in the Jackrabbits' first game of the year and bulldozed his way to an 865-yard campaign despite not playing in the team's final game of the year against Ephrata after suffering a mild concussion. Then he went on to have an outstanding season as a member of the QHS wrestling squad, placing fifth in the state tournament in the 160-pound weight class. He capped off the year by turning out for the baseball team after not playing organized baseball for the past three years. As such, not much was expected of Webley at the start of the season, but he surprised some people by earning the team's starting catcher position. Later in the year, he found his niche as a pinch-hitter and top pinch-running option. Not surprisingly, Webley proved himself to be an outstanding teammate and was voted as the baseball team's most inspirational player. Webley's graduation marks the end of a great run; he's the youngest of six brothers who all excelled on the QHS athletic fields. The fact that there will be no more Webleys is the school athletic program's loss. Winner: Breck Webley. Runners-up: Luke Grigg, Cody Beaumont.
Female Athlete of the Year
This one was practically ordained at the end of last year, when Taylor Kunkel finished a close second to Colleen Knodell for this award. She did nothing to remove herself as the favorite early this year as she became a key contributor to the QHS volleyball and girls basketball teams. But track and field has always been Kunkel's specialty, and it was on the track where she solidified herself as the top female athlete at QHS this year. She broke school records in the long jump and triple jumps and earned two state medals by placing fourth in the triple jump and sixth in the long jump. Winner: Taylor Kunkel. Runner-up: Jazmine Perez.
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