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YAKIMA -- Kelly Mattson admits it's been an "educational" week. That will happen when a track athlete of yours goes out and runs 100 meters in 10.36 seconds.

When Selah's Brett Blanshan recorded that eye-popping performance at last Friday's CWAC North sub-district meet at Othello it prompted the same question over and over: "Is that right?," Mattson was repeatedly asked, "did he really run that fast?"

The answer is, simply, yes. The automatic-timing system, which eliminates the variables of hand-held timing, was up and running and the time -- while surpassed in state history only by Ellensburg's Ja'Warren Hooker -- is legitimate.

The only issue for national recognition and
all-time state rankings is wind, and that remains unresolved because there was no wind gauge.

That may sound like a ticky-tack thing, especially since there is a wind gauge at maybe two meets the entire season -- the Pasco Invitational and the state meets. Which is why I don't separate marks known to be wind aided in the Valley bests.

However, wind gauges are used at state to verify meet records for running events up to 200 meters and in the long and triple jumps. If a mark is over 2.0 meters per second (4.473 miles an hour) it is disallowed for record purposes.

Track and Field News is the gatekeeper for all high school marks and rankings and it uses the same internationally excepted criteria, which is also used in the historical context of Washington's all-time rankings. So lacking a wind reading, the Blanshan time would have to be regarded has a wind-aided mark.

Now that his star athlete has ascended to such a rare level of performance, Mattson is scrambling to either borrow a gauge from Eisenhower for this week's district meet or buy one (they go for $300 and up).

The gauge in Ike's possession is the one Robert Price bought in 1997 when Hooker blazed his way into the record books. Price, Ellensburg's head coach then and Ike assistant now, knew Hooker might bust a record run in any given meet so he made sure of two things -- the automatic system was in place and so was the wind gauge.

Hooker's prep best of 10.27 was set in, of all places, Naches. It was accepted as the nation's leading performance that year and still stands as the state's
all-time record because of its legal wind reading, which was 1.2 meters per second.

Mattson, coaching at Highland in 1997, saw the 10.27. And now he's seen 10.36.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd see something like that again -- and here it's one of our own kids," Mattson said. "Brett's taking it all in stride, but it's been an educational week for me."

And don't forget -- Blanshan is just a junior.

It's Déjá vu for the Rangers

At a time when other teams are bracing for the unknowns of the state baseball playoffs, Naches Valley is heading into familiar territory against familiar foes.

So much so it's kind of eerie.

The Rangers are returning to Wenatchee's Civic Stadium, where they played all four of their state games last year en route to a second-place trophy, and Saturday's regional field is full of teams they have played recently.

Last year they opened against Brewster at 1 p.m.

And this year? Brewster, 1 p.m.

"We know all three teams real well and that's sort of a luxury for this time of year," said NV coach Bill Walker. "Goldendale is in our league, and the other two teams (Brewster and Lakeside) we played at state last year. It's made scouting and preparing a little easier."

Not to mention travel arrangements.

"We'd like to have a 1A regional down here and we're working on that for next year," Walker said. "But we like Wenatchee and our best luck has been 1 o'clock games. It's a good setup for us."

Should the sixth-ranked Rangers (20-2-1) handle Brewster and the Goldendale-Lakeside winner on Saturday they will stay home for the finals. Yakima County Stadium will host the 1A final four May 23-24.

But before any of that excitement there's the matter of extending a
14-game win streak to 16 in a row. After outscoring their SCAC West opponents
164-10, the Rangers were able to gear up for some tight ones at district, capped by a 3-1 title win over Connell.

"We keep ourselves sharp because we're blessed with some deep pitching. That allows us to use a lot of live pitching in practice and that's a big benefit to our hitters," Walker said.

After his commitment to the SCAC for three non-conference crossover doubleheaders, Walker had two dates left and he filled them with two memorable games. The Rangers opened the season with a 12-0 deficit to Ephrata but rallied to tie the game 17-17 before it was called at dusk, and Rochester -- ranked eighth and headed to the Anacortes regional -- clipped NV
5-4 during spring break at Parker Field.

From the sidelines ...

East Valley's Casie Snyder, who remained unbeaten in No. 1 singles after winning the CWAC South sub-district, was named Seattle Times/WIAA athlete of the week for 2A girls. ... Naches Valley and Eisenhower will again be the quarterfinal sites for Saturday's 1B state baseball playoffs. Naches Valley will have Wishkah Valley vs. Colton at 10 a.m. followed by Touchet vs. Odessa at 1 p.m. At Ike Field, Garfield-Palouse will play Northport at 10 a.m. and Curlew will face Lake Quinault at 1 p.m. The winners will return to Yakima next week for the finals at Parker Field. ... Riverside Christian probably expected 15-time state baseball champion DeSales to be in its regional in Walla Walla on Saturday, but the Irish were upset by Asotin and they're headed to Spokane instead. ... Audra Cummings has been hired to replace Jillian DeBritz as Walla Walla's volleyball coach. ... Kennewick has named former Hanford assistant Bradyn Leyde as its new boys basketball coach.

* Sports reporter Scott Spruill can be reached at sspruill@yakimaherald.com or 577-7686.