Sports - High Schools

POSTED: Saturday, Jun. 28, 2008

ALL-WHATCOM COUNTY BOYS' ATHLETE OF THE YEAR: Lintz was one of a kind

Meridian standout athlete excelled at three different sports

Meridian’s Andrei Lintz set the standard for local highschool athletes this year, and now he’s taking his talents to the Pac-10 Conference.

Named all-state in football and basketball and a state champion for the Trojans’ track and field team, Lintz is The Bellingham Herald’s Boys’ Athlete of the Year.

He earned first-team all-state honors as a defensive end and punter for Meridian, which finished 11-1 and reached the Class 1A state quarterfinals. As a junior in 2006, Lintz was a key two-way starter for the Trojans, who went 14-0 and won their third state championship in nine years.

During the winter, he was Meridian’s senior post player, averaging 16.1 points and 5.7 rebounds. The Trojans went 10-3 in Northwest Conference play, but their postseason hopes were hindered by illness late in the season as they advanced to the 1A district tournament.

Lintz finished his prep career with a flourish last month in Tacoma. At the state track and field meet, he won the shot put with an effort of 55 feet, one and one-quarter inches, and finished eighth in the 200-meter dash.

The next step for the 6-foot-5, 225- pounder is Washington State University, where he signed to play football. Lintz’s college career is not getting off to the start he would have liked, but he’s making the best of it.

Last week in Yakima while preparing to play in the 1A/2A allstate football game, Lintz suffered torn ligaments in his left ankle. The original diagnosis was a fractured fibula, but further examination revealed the injured ligaments; he’s scheduled to have surgery Tuesday.

“It put a damper on my summer plans,” Lintz admitted. “I was planning working out every day, getting going on the (WSU) summer workout schedule.”

Lintz said he endured a bit of a shock when he received the news about his ankle, which will require probably two months of rehabilitation time after the surgery. But he said he’ll persevere.

“I’ll probably rent a couple of movies and a couple of video games,” said Lintz cheerfully, although he said he had been looking forward to taking advantage of this week’s warm weather.

“The weather doesn’t make me feel any better; I’ll have to make the best of a bad situation,” he said.

Regarding his senior year and prep career, Lintz said he was pleased.

“I’m proud, definitely, of what I accomplished and what my teammates accomplished,” Lintz said. “I think we all had a pretty successful senior season.”

Meridian boys’ basketball coach Shane Stacy, who also coached Lintz on the football field, says it’s understating the obvious to say the Trojans will miss Lintz.

“As far as physical, he’s one of a kind, with that size, strength and speed,” Stacy said. “But it’s mentally and emotionally, what he can do for a team. It’s the ability to get a read on the situation and know what his teammates need from him.

“He has that knack. He’d know when to be funny and when to be serious, and that definitely benefitted us. It wouldn’t have mattered if we had 12 seniors (on the young Meridian basketball team), we still would have followed Andrei.”

Stacy shared a story about Lintz’s role in Meridian’s 27-22 victory over Connell, which gave the Trojans the 2006 state football championship.

Meridian had scored with less than a minute left, but on the game’s final play, Eagles receiver Spencer Hadley caught a pass in the open field and got inside the Meridian 10-yard-line. Lintz and his teammates drove Hadley out of bounds about two yards from scoring as the clock ran out.

“Right before that play, Connell called a timeout,” Stacy said. “At that point, I was as excited as anyone, watching the game as a fan.

“Andrei asked if he should drop back and play center field, and I said something like ‘Well, yeah.’ Had Andrei not come over and said that to me, I don’t know if we would have brought another state title back to Laurel. It was an unbelievable heads-up play by a 17-year-old kid.”

Craig Parrish can be reached at craig.parrish@bellinghamherald.com or 715-2279.