(Photos courtesy Westside Pickleball League unless otherwise credited)

The lines are painted and the Nino Cantu Southwest Athletic Complex courts now can accommodate pickleball as well as tennis outside school hours. We first reported in April that the Westside Pickleball League had secured Seattle Public Schools permission to add stripes to the courts; now it’s been completed, and the first big tournament is in the books, the league reports:

In January, Westside Pickleball League raised enough money to clean the SWAC courts and paint “ice blue” pickleball lines for 6 permanent courts, and paint line markers for 6 additional courts so temporary lines (orange tape in photos) can be taped. In March, we received permission to move forward with the project. In mid-May the courts were cleaned, and lines were painted.

(Photo by Brendan DeVoue of DeVouetedMedia.com)

It’s been a week since our inaugural “ASTRIA Rally on the Rock” tournament on June 10th. This was the Westside Pickleball League’s way of presenting the 12 new pickleball courts to the community. Rain cancelled other tournaments in the area that day. We could not tape lines on 6 of our 12 courts unless they were dry. But we were determined to make it happen! We made some strategic adjustments. Our army of volunteers stood at the ready in the morning rain. And together we summoned some pickleball magic and forged ahead after a 3-hour rain delay!

(Photo by Brendan DeVoue of DeVouetedMedia.com)

The Seattle Metro Pickleball League wrote here about our tournament.

Here are some numbers:

(Winners of Men’s Advanced Doubles division @ tournament)

-144 players participated
-Over 51 volunteers helped
-Tournament started 3 hours late due to rain at 12:00 noon and ended at 8:45 p as we were losing sunlight. Perfect timing!
-ASTRIA Pickleball donated over $3200 in prizes for our tournament winners
-101 pounds of food were donated to the White Center Food Bank through the tournament; our fundraiser for that cause continues
-We will donate a portion of our tournament proceeds to Sealth Athletics at Chief Sealth International High School

The best parts of the Westside Pickleball League are the friendships that have been made among the players, and the other communities we are able to help through donations.

(Westside Pickleball League admins Amy, Rosina, Nancy)

Our league will take a break over the summer and will start up again in Sept/Oct. Interested players should check our website WestsidePBLeague.com for registration dates opening in September.

We first featured the pickleball group in this February story. The NCSWAC courts are just west of Southwest Pool/Teen Life Center (2801 SW Thistle).