By DEAN SIEMON

The Shelton High School powerlifting program may be rebuilding from when Rich Unterseher was the coach, but Lorna Martinson said that this year’s group of lifters shows excitement and improvement.

“There is a bunch of new lifters and they have a lot of fun,” Martinson said.

“They are really excited and their progress is amaz-ing.”

When school started in September, Martinson would recruit students from her weightlifting class in

P.E. to join the powerlifting team.

“I joined the class and I was doing good on bench press,” said senior Anthony Wood.

“Mrs. Martinson told me to sign up and I did.”

Other students looked at scores from the past and felt that they could achieve similar scores, if not better.

“I saw the scores from past events and I thought I would do good,” said senior Anthony O’Connor.

With two events complet-ed, the amount of weight for each lift has improved for a

number of lifters. Senior Charissa Moran has im-proved her bench press from 90 to 95 from January’s competition in Aberdeen to the Northwest Christian High School competition in Lacey back on February 6.

“It has taken me three years to reach that,” Moran said.

“I would like to finally bench 100.”

Just like Wood and O’Connor, senior Thomas Blueback is a first year pow-erlifter and has improved since the first event of the year. At the NWCHS event,

Blueback placed fourth in his 220-pound division. He achieved personal highs with 225 pounds at squat, 190 pounds at bench and 415 pounds in the deadlift. But Blueback, like the oth-ers on the team, is still look-ing to achieve more.

“I am hoping to get my weights up,” Blueback said.

While powerlifters com-pete against each other at competitions and meets, the biggest competition, many lifters have said, is within themselves. No mat-ter what team a lifter is on, everyone shows their sup-

port and encouragement.“People can try and do

their best and it is challeng-ing in itself,” O’Connor said.

“You are always chal-lenging yourself to go high-er and everyone is support-ive,” Moran said.

All of the powerlifters have also been recruiting their fellow classmates, in-cluding the freshmen and sophomores from P.E., as well as family in some cas-es.

“I am trying to encour-age younger guys like my younger brother, Brandon,”

By DEAN SIEMON

Kim Goldsby was born and raised in Shelton, but was not able to play fast-pitch softball at Shelton High School in her younger years. In fact, athletics were few and far between at the time.

“I was a junior in high school before I played bas-ketball,” Goldsby said.

But the newly named SHS fastpitch coach played in summer leagues since she was 12 years old, eventually playing at Olympic College, winning a conference cham-pionship in the program’s first season.

For the last several years, Goldsby has been ap-proached about taking the head coaching position.

“I did not really want to at first because there were outside influences that re-ally prevented me,” Goldsby said.

But one of the reasons for taking the position was family connection through players and coaches, and the enthusiasm she saw dis-played through the hopeful Highclimbers reminded her

of when she played.“I saw the enthusiasm

and that spark that they were hungry to learn the game,” Goldsby said.

“It was like when I was growing up. That is why I am here.”

Having played fastpitch and slowpitch softball in leagues and tours before coaching the softball pro-

gram at South Puget Sound Community College for two years, wants to use the en-thusiasm from the girls to make the team aggressive against a tough Narrows League.

“[The program] is rebuild-ing, but at the same time we have so much enthusiasm that I feel we can surprise some people,” Goldsby said.

Goldsby said she was ex-cited to see that 33 student-athletes turned out for the first practice on Monday for the varsity and junior-varsi-ty teams. While many show experience and skill, a few are still new to the sport.

“I am having to teach some how to pitch and some how to throw,” Goldsby said.

Waking up Saturday morning with the intention of jumping in my mom’s new RV and heading off to Ocean Shores for some razor clam-ming for the weekend with the family turned out to be

an adven-ture all its own.

As I l o a d e d the 31-foot motor home with n e a r l y my entire house, my wifey came quick-step-ping into the camp-er with d r a m a t i c

news. There had been a large earthquake in Chile and the possibility of a tsu-nami was high, even on the Washington Coast.

Dropping what I was do-ing and super-gluing my eyes to the local news, I was in disbelief of yet another devastating natural catas-trophe in our world. Talk ran through my house of canceling our trip to avoid the possible huge wave.

It was decided that we would wait to see the live coverage of Hawaii and how big the tsunami was and until after the danger time had passed in our state be-fore heading down to the low-lying coast. That turned out to be a good idea. Not because a tsunami hit or the coast was unsafe. No. We realized that my mom’s RV hadn’t seen the road since she had driven it back from the dealer lot, and I wanted to see how it would run.

Along on this mini-vacation

Thursday, March 4, 2010 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Page C-1

Cyan Magenta Yellow Black

Sports&OutdoorsJournal

See Powerlifter on page C-3

See Coach on page C-5

See Clamming on page C-2

10 QUESTIONS WITH GLENN SHORTEM, RACQUETBALL PLAYER

By KELLY RIORDAN

MasonCOUNTYOUTDOORS

Journal: When and how did you first start playing racquet-ball?

Glenn Shortem: “In college. Just a couple of friends in-vited me to play.”

Journal: How of-ten do you play?

GS: “About two or three times a week for an hour.”

Journal: What do you like best about the game?

GS: “Diving for the ball. It is fun flying through the air.”

Journal: How has it been beneficial to you?

GS: “It is a good way to stay active. It is refreshing and is a good break.”

Journal: Have you recruited any family members or friends?

GS: I play with my son sometimes.”

Journal: What is

your favorite activity or hobby outside of racquetball?

GS: “Working on computers.”

Journal: What is your favorite televi-sion show?

GS: “I would say ei-ther ‘House M.D.’ or ‘Chuck.’ “

Journal: What is your favorite book?

GS: “The Net Force series.”

Journal: What is

your favorite song or band?

GS: “It would prob-ably have to be any-thing from the 1980s.”

Journal: If you were given $1 million, what would you do with that much money?

GS: “I would buy a Ford Mustang con-vertible, a high-end computer system and then retire.”

– Asked by Dean Siemon, the Journal

Shelton High School hires new fastpitch coach

Crazy RV-ing and Clamming, Part I

SHS powerlifters continue to improveShelton senior Anthony O'Connor practices his deadlift during a weightlifting class at Shelton High School to prepare for the upcoming competition on Saturday.

Journal photo by Dean Siemon