There will be five individuals and a team inducted into the Piner High School athletic Hall of Fame at an April 19 dinner at the Santa Rosa Golf and Country Club.


This year's inductees include Piner's first women's athletic director and coach Pat Sampson, basketball player Steve Kramer, baseball and football player Jim Hurt, football player and track and field competitor Dave Albritton, soccer player Emiria Salzmann and the 1976 boys' cross country team.

In addition to her AD chores, Sampson coached basketball, badminton, softball and tennis. She coached the 1977 girls' basketball team to a North Bay League title and second place in the North Coast Section. Sampson retired from Piner in 1994.

Kramer holds the career (1,527 points) and single-season scoring (712) records at Piner. He was the Empire Player of the year in 1990 and 1991. He averaged 28 points a game his senior year and was also an all-conference player at Santa Rosa JC and played for an NAIA national title team at Albertson College in Idaho. Kramer has coached boys' basketball at Windsor the past 10 years.

Hurt was a quarterback at Piner whose 1,630 yards passing and 17 touchdowns were records until another Hall of Famer, Paul Cronin, came along. Hurt was a standout in baseball, playing varsity three years and batting .450 as a senior. He played shortstop and pitched. Hurt played for years on the Santa Rosa Rosebuds semipro team and still plays for a 50-over team that won a world series in Phoenix last year.

Albritton was the premier shot putter and discus thrower at Piner, throwing the shot 54-2¼ feet and the discus 162-10 as a senior in 1976. He was also an All-Redwood Empire defensive tackle and wrestled. He went on to set shot and discus records at SRJC and competed on two national championship teams at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Salzmann was an all-Empire soccer player who scored six goals in a game and 38 in one season, leading the 1990-92 teams in scoring. She was also all-conference at SRJC and at Sonoma State in 1995-96. She is now the coach of the SRJC women's soccer team.

The 1976 cross country team, the first team elected into Piner's HOF, won a Sonoma County League championship, a Redwood Empire title, the NCS and were second nationally in an event called the Postal 2 and 3 miles.

Reservations are requested, no later than Friday, for the dinner. Cost is $50 per person. For information, call 836-9735.

STATE WRESTLING CHAMP

Healdsburg High's impressive wrestling reputation looks intact for a while longer.

Last weekend, Adam Hendrickson, a 13-year-old eighth grader at Healdsburg Junior High, won at the State Junior High Wrestling Championships at Fresno City College.

Hendrickson went 5-0 and won the 108-pound weight class.

The Healdsburg team finished fifth behind only Bakersfield, Clovis, Poway and Selma.

Other placers for Healdsburg included Eric Chavez, 13, at 205 pounds, who finished third with a 4-1 record; Matthew Tsarnas, 13, fourth at 118 pounds with a 3-2 mark, and P.J. Klee, a sixth grader, who placed fifth, also 3-2.

PITCHOUT TIME

Clear Lake softball coach Gary Pickle would just as soon keep it a secret, but saying the Cardinals are quick is like saying Rickey Henderson liked to run.

Missing all-Empire pitcher Brittany Rumfelt for the first time in four years (she's pitching for the Oregon Ducks), Clear Lake, 6-0, has been winning with its hitting and running.

In a win against Fort Bragg last week, leadoff hitter Kaila Sterbank had two steals and Julie Jackson had one. The Cardinals were 10-for-10 in steals in a win against Ukiah.

Clear Lake hopes to show more of its running game this weekend in Ukiah's tournament.

You can reach Staff Writer Rich Rupprecht at 521-5275 or rich. rupprecht@pressdemocrat.com