Prep Notebook | Evergreen coach chosen to revive Juanita football

Juanita High School didn't have to look far for its next football coach. Only about six blocks.

Evergreen coach Shaun Tarantola, whose home is in the same Kirkland neighborhood, accepted the Juanita job this week.

"He just has this youthful exuberance, and yet he is a top-quality coach," Juanita athletic director Tim Crowder said. "He took that program at Evergreen from the doldrums, and in three years, they were winning the league championship. That's a similar task to what we have here."

Tarantola went 20-11 in three years at Evergreen, 17-4 the past two seasons. He helped the White Center school win a share of the Seamount League championship last fall.

Juanita went 3-6 in 2007 and has had only one winning season since 1999. The school will move to the KingCo 3A/2A division next fall, and Tarantola should feel right at home. He played receiver and defensive back at Sammamish and was an assistant at Liberty, both KingCo 3A schools.

"Talking to people from the community, talking to people in the junior-high programs, I just felt like Juanita's got a lot of potential," Tarantola said.

Shorewood to forfeit two victories

Shorewood's boys basketball team will forfeit their only two victories after the Shoreline School District self-reported to WesCo that the Thunderbirds had used an ineligible player.

The athlete, who was not identified, was not enrolled during the spring semester last year, violating the WIAA's previous-semester rule.

"This violation is strictly an administrative error, and one that slipped through our checks and balances," said Don Dalziel, the school district's athletic director.

Shorewood must forfeit wins against Hazen on Nov. 27 and Shorecrest on Dec. 12. The ineligible player cannot play until the start of the second semester. Provided he meets academic requirements he will be eligible Feb. 1.

Note

• Mark Potoshnik, head coach at Roosevelt the past three seasons, was named baseball coach at Archbishop Murphy. The former Kennewick High School pitcher was twice drafted but didn't play professionally. He has scouted for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Angels and coached amateur baseball for 13 years.

Freelancer Zach Landres-Schnur contributed to this report.