Warrior Watch is Brad Fuqua’s midweek look at local athletics with his takes on Philomath High teams and sports in the region.
Three Philomath HIgh School soccer players were included on all-state first teams released earlier this month — seniors Teddy Benbow and Mateo Candanoza for the boys and junior Kamilla Grimmer for the girls.
In addition, senior Seth Arthurs made the boys soccer second team. In football, senior Ty May was included on the honorable mention list.
Benbow emerged as one of the top goalkeepers in Class 4A over the past two seasons and was a key contributor in the team’s state title game in 2021 against Hidden Valley, a contest that ended in a shootout.
Candanoza and Arthurs led the Warriors to a 9-1-4 record and No. 3 ranking this past season. Candanoza was always around the net with contributions through goals and assists. Arthurs was a team leader on the pitch, serving as one of the Warriors’ team captains.
Grimmer had an exceptional season offensively for the Warriors with 24 goals. She had five hat tricks during the season, including in four straight games in October.
Senior Ty May earned a spot on the all-state team as an honorable mention choice at tight end. May, a 6-foot-6, 225-pound senior, excelled at the position both catching the ball and on blocking schemes. May plans to continue playing football at the collegiate level.
The all-state teams are determined by a vote of the state’s coaches, compiled by the SBLive Oregon staff and published jointly by SBLive Oregon and The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Gross, Neville on DDCA team
The Dance Drill Coaches Association last weekend announced its all-state team and two Philomath High athletes were among those chosen — seniors Morgan Gross and Stella Neville.
To be eligible for all-state, each dancer must be recommended by their coach as meeting core dance skills, be in good standing with their school and all members of the dancer’s coaching staff must be a member of the DDCA, which has sponsored the all-state team since 2011. Only seniors are eligible to audition.
The announcement of the all-state teams took place this past Sunday after the finalists performed at Tigard.
Candidates had learned a section of a routine before gathering in Tigard for the auditioning. A panel of three judges chose who would move forward out of the first round and those qualifying learned the second section of the routine.
Joining Gross and Neville on the 4A/3A/2A/1A team were Kaylie Schrotzberger of Scappoose and Isabella Frias of Valley Catholic. The 5A team included 11 seniors and the 6A team recognized 19.
Fight System competitors winning
The Integral Progression Fight System Gym, often referred to as the IPFS Gym or The Fight System, has been seeing a lot of success in various competitions in recent weeks. The gym, owned by Justin and Emily Zabroski, got its start in Philomath and now works out of a location in West Corvallis.
Emily Zabroski reported that the gym’s fighters as of this week, the competitors are on a 10-fight win streak in pro and amateur mixed martial arts, amateur boxing and kickboxing.
“The exceptional point about this win streak is that none of our fighters have had any significant facial damage after winning their fight,” she said.
In the most recent fight this past weekend, Justin Zabroski won a co-main pro event at the Primal Fighting Championship at the Win-River Casino in Redding, California. Zabroski defeated Enkhtur Bayartsogt, a Mongolian-born athlete who fights out of San Francisco, on an armbar submission at 3:30 in the third round.
The gym also had four recent wins at the Full Contact Fighting Federation’s Rumble at the Roseland — the state’s oldest fighting event. Among those winners was Niko Tuaefe, who had a first-round knockout.
In addition, the gym’s fighters had amateur wins in California and Washington over the past six months.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).