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The Hermiston Hurricanes were created by former Blue
Mountain Stars players Michael Ramirez and Tyson Banker and
applied for entry into the Washington Football League in the fall of
2009 and grandfathered in under the Stars legacy that shut the door
on another team trying to form in the
Umatilla Coyotes.
Opening the season with a loss to
Yakima, it took a few games for the Hurricanes to find their
game struggling to wins over the
Commandos and Shockers.
Winners of 8-straight including back-to-back wins over the
Wolfpack in the regular season
finale and the WFL playoffs, the Hurricanes stood poised to win the
WFL and compete for the GNFA titles. After winning
convincingly over the Rams in the
WFL championship, the Hurricanes pulled the shock of the year by
forfeiting the GNFA Regional Championship game 6 days before kickoff
against two-time defending champion
Portland riding a 38-1 record since 2008.
Following the debacle of the GNFA Championship, a rival branch off
started with the Umatilla Panthers
leaving the Hurricanes short in some departments. The 2011
season reflected that as a 9-1 team from the year before struggled
to a 4-7 record and a one-point playoff exit at the hands of
Okanogan., it's 3rd loss to the Commandos and second in successive
weeks.
2012 started off no better as the Hurricanes were on the short end
in 3-straight games before stealing away from Spokane with a 22-21
victory. The rest of the month of April was in shambles as
games were cancelled until a May 5th meeting with the
Riverhawks.
Hermiston blew away Columbia Basin and
Palouse in back-to-back games and again knocked off the Wolfpack
in the playoffs to advance to the WFL Championship for the 2nd time
in three years. Wenatchee took the title and Hermiston sat to
ponder another 4-win season, the four losses coming by a combined
14-points, three by four or less.
That eventually led to the decision to shut down the franchise and
players began to surface in talks of a team in Waitsburg, Washington
near where the Walla Walla franchise was born in 2004. That
team would take the field in 2013 as the
Waitsburg Elite under Hermiston
coach Jeff Barnes with long-time Stars running back Brandon Tate
taking over as head coach in 2014.
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