There have been plenty of coaching openings for Quientin Poil to choose from over the years. A baseball junky who has both played and coached at the college level, none of the previous vacancies felt quite right.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Instead of giving the potential openings at least a tip of the cap, Poil let them pass by like a fading changeup out of the strike zone.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That is, of course, until early January, when Kentlake High\u2019s Jason Evans officially announced his five-year run with the Falcons was over. Like a thigh-high fastball over the middle of the plate, this was an opportunity Poil couldn\u2019t let slide by.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted it pretty bad,\u201d admitted Poil, who had been an assistant baseball coach at perennial powerhouse Puyallup since 2007. \u201cThere have been other high school jobs to open up, but I liked being (an assistant).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The job at Kentlake, however, was unlike any other Poil had stumbled across in recent years. The Falcons have qualified for the postseason in each of the last five years and enter the spring as one of the most dangerous teams in the South Puget Sound League North Division.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re very talented,\u201d said Poil, who played at Washington State University (1988-1989) and also was an assistant for the Cougars (1990-1991). \u201cWe have a lot of team speed, there\u2019s good pitching, good defense \u2026 I think we\u2019ll be able to pick it with any team in the league. And we have outfielders who can run. We\u2019re two deep at each spot and four-to-six deep on the mound.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI am liking where we\u2019re at. I think we\u2019re going to be good this year and in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
And though the Falcons ooze talent, Poil still has some big shoes to fill in Evans, who guided Kentlake to its lone SPSL North title and a second-place finish at the Class 4A state tournament in 2008. In five years, Evans compiled an impressive 74-40 overall record and helped 19 Falcons move on to play at the college level.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That said, however, Poil is hardly an unfamiliar face on the prep baseball circuit. Along with assisting at Puyallup High the last four years, he also is a hitting and catching instructor at the Big League Edge in Auburn. In addition, Poil coaches the Puget Sound Roxx, an 18U Puyallup-based select team that he guided to a Babe Ruth World Series crown in 2009.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Now, however, his focus is on helping the Falcons return to the top of the North.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMy specific goal is that I want to win the North,\u201d he said. \u201cI want us to qualify for the playoffs, and I want us to beat our in-area schools \u2013 Tahoma, Kentridge, Kentwood and Kent-Meridian. Tahoma isn\u2019t in Kent, but I consider an in-area school. That\u2019s my goal, to win the city championship.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentwood entered the season as the consensus favorite among league coaches, but a Kentlake uprising wouldn\u2019t be a surprise. The Falcons return some of the league\u2019s most talented players, including first-team outfielder Austin Pernell, a pair of aces in Sean Hartnett and Ryne Shelton along with slugging catcher Jake Ross (3 home runs) and slick-fielding infielder Ryan Archibald.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are definitely players here,\u201d Poil said. \u201cIt\u2019s obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As is the fact that the first-year coach finally landed the golden opportunity. The opportunity he\u2019d been waiting for.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There have been plenty of coaching openings for Quientin Poil to choose from over the years. A baseball junky who has both played and coached at the college level, none of the previous vacancies felt quite right.<\/p>\n
Instead of giving the potential openings at least a tip of the cap, Poil let them pass by like a fading changeup out of the strike zone.<\/p>\n
That is, of course, until early January, when Kentlake High\u2019s Jason Evans officially announced his five-year run with the Falcons was over. Like a thigh-high fastball over the middle of the plate, this was an opportunity Poil couldn\u2019t let slide by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12044"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12044"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}