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SPORTS WEDNESDAY, NO9EMBER , 2015 HERMISTON Sports shorts &Oemson toSs ¿ rst playoff ranking NEW YORK (AP) — Clemson, LSU, Ohio State and Alabama are the top four teams in the ¿ rst College Football Playoff selection committee rankings of the season. Notre 'ame was ¿ fth and Baylor was sixth. Clemson, LSU and Ohio State are among 11 unbeaten teams in FBS, nearly quadruple the number there was last season when the committee started ranking teams. Alabama and Notre Dame each have one loss. Memphis was the highest ranked team from a Group of Five conference at No. 13 on Tuesday night. Last year the top four teams in the ¿ rst playoff rankings were Mississippi State, Florida State, Auburn and Mississippi. Ohio State, the eventual champion, was 16th in the ¿ rst rankings. 1B FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @EOSPORTS Dawgs advance with win over Raiders Win moves Hermiston into state quarter¿ nals By SAM BARBEE East Oregonian Boys Soccer I remembered Hood Hermiston 3 It was a nightmare start. At least, that’s how Hermiston boys soccer coach Rich Harshberger described it. In the opening round of the 5A state playoffs, the visiting Crescent Valley Raiders scored in the third minute when junior defender Isaac Wilson headed in a corner kick. It was reminiscent of Hermiston’s last match of the regular season, which ended in a tie after the Bulldogs fell into an early hole. Tuesday evening Hermiston completed the comeback and scored thrice unanswered to down the Raiders 3-1 at Kennison Stadium. “I wasn’t worried about it, because Crescent Vall. 1 Herm- iston’s Freddy Rodri- guez gets tangled up with Crescent Valley’s Chris Graham in the Bull- dogs’ 3-1 win against the Raiders on Tues- day in Hermis- ton. River,” Harshberger said of the regular season ¿ nale. “We came back and did the exact same thing tonight … I was just like, ‘OK, nightmare start again.’ But then I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve had a nightmare start before this season.’ And we recovered from that. So I had full con¿ - dence we could come back from it.” He said his players were mindful of it, too. “They understood there was a lot of game left and it doesn’t take long to score a goal,” he said. Two of Hermiston’s goals were utilized by on-the-ground through balls. Crescent Valley had more size than Hermiston, but See HERMISTON/2B Staff photo by E.J. Harris Pirates crXise to TXarter¿ nals BOARDMAN Mets reward manager with contract extenstion NEW YORK (AP) — New York Mets manager Terry Collins has been rewarded with a two-year contract through 2017 after guiding the team to the World Series, person FACES a familiar with the deal told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The agreement Collins came fresh off the Mets’ deep run into the postseason. They lost to the Kansas City Royals in the clinching Game 5 on Sunday night. The Mets held a club option on Collins for 2016, and instead gave him with a longer deal. He has managed the Mets for ¿ ve seasons. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because there had been no of¿ cial announcement. Collins and general manager Sandy Alderson are set to hold a news conference at Citi Field on Wednesday. “It is encouraging that in this case the best person turned out to be African- American. This is a positive step and I am intent on making continued progress on diversity in the managerial ranks going forward.” -Rob Manfred Major League Baseball commissioner on the Washington Nationals hiring Dusty Baker as the teams’ newest manager on Tuesday. Baker, 66, is currently the only black manager in baseball, and his hiring ensures that MLB will have at least one black manager for the 24th-consecutive season. In 2015, MLB had only one black manager, Lloyd McLen- don, who managed the Seattle Mariners. THIS DATE IN SPORTS 1976 — Baseball holds its ¿ rst free agent draft with 2 players from 13 major league clubs participating. Reggie Jackson eventually signs the most lucrative contract of the group, $2.9 million over ¿ ve years with the New York Yankees. Contact us at 541-966-0838 or sports@eastoregonian.com Staff photo by E.J. Harris Riverside’s Misael Madrigal pushes upfi eld on Taft’s Angel Cortez in the Pirates’ 4-0 win against the Tigers on Tuesday in Boardman. Riverside boys continue run of excellence in state playoffs By MATT ENTRUP East Oregonian The Riverside Pirates advanced to the second round of the OSAA Class 3A/2A/1A boys soccer state playoffs for the ninth season in a row with a convincing -0 win over Taft on Tuesday at Port of Morrow. The 11th-seeded Tigers (9--2) had given up just 12 goals all the Tigers defend the season with eight Boys Soccer entire ¿ eld. shutouts for soph- In the 17th minute, omore goalkeeper sophomore Quincy Sammy Islas, but Taft Castillo ran through it didn’t take long Riverside one of those gaps in for No. 6 Riverside pursuit of a quickly (11-2-2) to ¿ nd the moving pass and got net. Even with Taft dropping one of just enough of the ball to redirect its forwards into the defense, River- it past Islas for the eventual game- side was able to create gaps by winner. spreading the ball wide and making “I saw the keeper coming 4 0 out and it was just a quick tap to make sure it goes in, to make sure I didn’t miss,” he said. “We just had to pressure and push through (Taft’s defense) … going to the wings and passing through, that’s pretty much it.” Castillo’s goal would be the only one in the ¿ rst half, but both teams had chances go off the woodwork in the ¿ nal 12 minutes. See PIRATES/2B College Football Oregon goes to the sheets to beat Arizona State By RYAN THORBURN The Register-Guard Oregon is airing Arizona State’s dirty laundry publicly. There is a perception in the Pac-12 that Todd Graham’s team steals offensive signals. Mark Helfrich let a national television audience know about it by having staff members hold up large white sheets to cover up the signals being sent from the sideline to quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. Graham said he didn’t pay attention to the gamesmanship during the Ducks’ 61-55 triple-over- time victory over the Sun Devils. “We got some intel on them that they were diligently working to steal signs and give the defen- sive play-caller run-pass. That puts you at a huge disadvantage,” offensive coordinator Scott Frost said Monday. “If we think we need those sheets, we’ll use them. I don’t think everybody is like the team we just played.” Helfrich was asked about countering the Sun Devils’ alleged sign- stealing tactics on Sunday. “We just got some information … we have very little intelligence, we had to get some,” Helfrich quipped. “We’re just trying to protect our stuff.” Utah, which typically runs a spread offense, huddled against Arizona State after sensing that its signals were being compro- mised. “They called out a couple of our plays last year,” center Siaosi Aiono told the Salt Lake Tribune after the Utes’ victory over the Sun Devils on Oct. 17. “So it was like a tool in our tool bag to have just in case we had to pull it out, and it worked out for us.” Helfrich said the sheets could return to the sideline in future games. He noted that there are former Stanford and USC players on Chip Kelly’s roster with the Philadelphia Eagles. “We’ve change a lot of the, not only mechanics, but what we do from a signaling standpoint is different just by virtue of you look at the Philly roster and I see ‘SC, I see Stanford, some of those names look very familiar,” Helfrich said. “So part of it is just trying to be … oper- ational security, I guess, going forward.” Oregon only ran 69 plays compared with 108 for Arizona State’s offense. Frost said the Ducks’ communication might have been tangled up in the sheets. “It was kind of tough Thursday night to go as fast as we wanted to with the way we were signaling and trying to hide our signals from them being able to steal them,” Frost said. “That kind of slowed us down.”