Where did the summer go? I feel like it was only a few days ago I was covering the state track and field meeting counting down the hours until I’d be free to take some time off.

Those two months flew by and here we are, two days from the start of football practice and week away from the other fall sports beginning. We’ve already started work on our high school football special section — the 12-page section will run in newspapers on Thursday, Sept. 3, but I’ll be posting updates here on the blog throughout camp.

Here are some observations …

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The Prep Blog has changed blogging systems and the URL. Please go here to check out the new site.

Make sure to update any bookmarks or RSS feeds you had pointing to our old system as they will no longer work.

New blog URL: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/preps

New RSS feed: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/preps/feed

New Atom feed: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/preps/feed/atom

We’re switching to a new blogging system here at The News Tribune and hope you’ll like the changes. We also hope you’ll try it out and give us your feedback.

A few of the changes you’ll notice:

• We’ve separated content and advertising by implementing the right ad column you’ll see on the rest of our site and a left content “widget” column.

• In that left column, we’ve added a tag cloud that shows the most blogged current topics. The tag cloud also allows us to streamline our category lists which got out-of control after awhile (sorry about …

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Bethel senior Happy Iona, a 6-foot-3 and 285-pound defensive tackle, gave a verbal committment on Wednesday evening to play at Oregon State University.

Bethel head coach Gavin Kralik said the Beavers are getting an excellent player.

"He’s extremely athletic for being 285 pounds," Kralik said. "He runs very, very well. He’s very good at being a run stuffer and a pass rusher."

Iona enters his senior season as a two-year starter — he played defensive end and outside linebacker as a sophomore and defensive tackle as a junior — but he missed half of last season because

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Bethel senior Happy Iona, a 6-foot-3 and 285-pound defensive tackle, gave a verbal commitment on Wednesday evening to play at Oregon State University.

Bethel head coach Gavin Kralik said the Beavers are getting an excellent player.

“He’s extremely athletic for being 285 pounds,” Kralik said. “He runs very, very well. He’s very good at being a run stuffer and a pass rusher.”

Iona enters his senior season as a two-year starter — he played defensive end and outside linebacker as a sophomore and defensive tackle as a junior — but he missed half of last season because of disciplinary issues. …

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Lakes High School’s Andre Wintson Jr., a 6-foot-1 guard, has given a verbal commitment to play basketball at James Madison University, Lancers coach JoJo Rodriguez has confirmed.

“He had a few other schools after him, but James Madison was the first and they were the only school to give him an offer,” Rodriguez said. “They wanted him.”
Washington State, Eastern Washington, Portland State, Nevada and Montana State showed interest in Winston, the coach said.

Winston averaged 19 points, 5 assists and 4 steals per game for the Lancers in the 2008-09 season. This summer, he played on the Seattle …

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Lakes High School’s Andre Wintson Jr., a 6-foot-1 guard, has given a verbal commitment to play basketball at James Madison University, Lancers coach JoJo Rodriguez has confirmed.

"He had a few other schools after him, but James Madison was the first and they were the only school to give him an offer," Rodriguez said. "They wanted him."

Washington State, Eastern Washington, Portland State, Nevada and Montana State showed interest in Winston, the coach said.

Winston averaged 19 points, 5 assists and 4 steals per game for the Lancers in the 2008-09 season. This summer, he played on

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Tacoma Baptist alumni Jeremy Lebow has been hired as the boys basketball coach at his alma mater.

Lewbow played at Western Baptist College and has previous coaching experience. He was the head coach at Willamette Valley Christian High School and led the Tacoma Baptist junior high program.

Lebow, who is the youth paston at Portland Avenue Evangelical Free Church, replaces former coach Rich Hamlin.