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| Published November 15, 2003 :: Home |
Leaving Their Mark It may have taken a little prodding, but ACH's Clarks have shined since they got on the court By SCOTT SANDSBERRY YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC Volleyball was the first love of their older sister and their mother, but Bailee and Kami Clark came grudgingly to the game in which they have helped Almira/Coulee-Hartline become a Class B powerhouse. Or else they’ve loved it since the start. Depends on who’s telling the tale. According to the parents, mom Kim practically had to arm-twist them into trying it. “We just love all sports,” says Kami, the freshman prodigy. “It wasn’t like that.” “It was, too,” laughs dad Dale. “Was not.” “Oh, c’mon,” Dale laughs. “Your mom’s been after you to play since you were born, almost.” Kim Clark loved volleyball, but when she was in high school in the late 1970s, “Girls’ sports weren’t exactly what they are now,” she says. Her senior season, 1978, only six girls turned out for volleyball, and one quit ... so they didn’t have a team. The Clarks’ oldest daughter, Callie, loved her mom’s sport and excelled enough to be an ACH standout and play a year of college volleyball at Wingate University in North Carolina. Callie was also a multisport athlete at ACH, and so Bailee and Kami grew up emulating their sister on gymnasium floors and athletic fields. But, for the younger sisters, basketball came first and foremost. Bailee, now a senior, has been a stellar guard-forward since her freshman year, helping ACH to three state trophies — second, third and sixth. She was also a freshman starter in volleyball as the Warriors reached the state tourney ... but then missed out the next two years. Advancing from the Bi-County League — perennially Class B’s strongest — is difficult to do, and automatically turns its survivors into state-championship contenders. Fourteen of the last 16 champions came from the Bi-County. This season, Bailee, playing in the middle at just 5-foot-8, was the Bi-County League’s MVP as four Warriors made all-league. One who didn’t earn “all” honors was 5-8 outside hitter Kami, something that almost certainly has more to do with her freshman status than anything she does on the court. Because she plays nothing remotely like a freshman, and she’s as good as anybody on the floor. Well, except perhaps Bailee, who has been every bit as outstanding as she is in her favorite sport — the one she’ll start dominating as soon as this one is over. What makes basketball No. 1? “It’s more of a rush,” Kami says. “You get to hit people,” Bailee grins. “Yeah,” Kami says. “It’s more physical.” And that’s right up Bailee’s alley. She’s the strongest girl in school. “Athletically, she’s the best girl on the court in any game we play, (against) any team,” says assistant basketball coach Mike Correia. “Probably her biggest asset is her dedication to make herself better. I’m a P.E. teacher, too, so I see her in the weight room all the time. Kami’s just a freshman, and she’s in there, too. So in two years, she’ll be just as strong, if not stronger.” But she’s not there yet. When the girls roughhouse at home, wrestling around the house, Bailee absolutely dominates little sister. “Bailee would dominate half the boys at our school — maybe three-quarters,” Correia says with a laugh. “Wait, I’m going to get in trouble here ... change that to might dominate. In the weight room, that’s different. In there, it’s for sure she’d dominate.” “She’s scary,” mom Kim says, then adds with a laugh, “(if) she comes after me, I run.” But Bailee isn’t the household terror. Quite the opposite, actually. She’s little sister’s biggest booster. “Bailee helps me along the way, because she knows what it takes and how it feels to be really good,” says Kami, who had 10 kills — tying Bailee for team high — in ACH’s first-round victory over La Salle. “She tells me I’m good, she tells me to believe in myself.” And also, when necessary, to do better: Hit down the line more ... move your feet more ... talk more on the court ... be more aggressive. Essentially, Bailee is doing for Kami just what Callie did for Bailee. “She was pretty bossy,” Bailee laughs. “I try not to be, but sometimes it comes out.” When Bailee talks, though, her teammates listen. “She’s the team leader,” says Warriors coach Angie Hunt, whose team will play in today’s 1:50 p.m. semifinals against St. George's. Not for long. Next year, Bailee will be gone and the Warriors’ four juniors will be seniors, but the work ethic they’ll aspire to will be that of Kami. “In practice, Kami has to be perfect. She demands that of herself,” Hunt says. “If I’m hitting it at them in practice and she doesn’t make the good pass, hit the target, she’ll stay in the front of that line and keep doing it until that pass is perfect. Bailee is that way, too, but Kami has had that since she was little.” When, as one version goes, she didn’t really like volleyball. To which, of course, she’d retort, “I did SO.”
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