B
S PORTS
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Section B
South Lane County Sports and Recreation
Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com
Baseball fi nishes with one win at Volcano tournament
Although the
Lions went 1-3
over the past week,
Cottage Grove at
times showed it can
keep up with 5A and
6A schools around
the state
BY SAM WRIGHT
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
From Wednesday up until
Saturday, the Cottage Grove
baseball team made its way to
Salem each day to compete in
the Volcanoes Spring Tourna-
ment that featured mostly 5A
and 6A schools from around the
state. With Cottage Grove High
School being a 4A school, the
Lions were the underdogs in ev-
ery matchup in the tournament.
Their fi rst opponent was
Roosevelt, a 6A school. Cottage
Grove surprised the Roughrid-
ers by taking an early 2-0 lead in
the fi rst inning. However, by the
top of the third, Roosevelt had
put up three runs in the second
and third innings together, and
the Lions wouldn’t take the lead
for the rest of the day.
Though Cottage Grove gave
a valiant batting effort, the Li-
ons were only able to score two
more runs (one in the fourth and
fi fth innings each), while giving
up two runs each in the fi fth and
sixth innings, falling short in a
7-4 loss.
Roosevelt presented a tough
defensive front, allowing only
four hits on the day by seniors
Lucas Ward, Ryan East, Hunter
Harris and Payton Presley.
On the other side, the Lions
struggled at times defensively
with a total of six errors. While
Photo by Sam Wright
Waltzing home: Wyatt Sayles reaches home plate as TJ Bellamy waits to greet him before hitting another base hit and RBI.
two errors were committed by
freshmen, the other four were
committed by upperclassmen,
something that won’t happen
very often to the Lions.
“We’ll keep getting sharper
as we progress,” head coach
Dan Geiszler said of his team
in the early season. Of course,
mistakes will tend to whither
as a team progresses through
its season. Junior Brett Ollivant
pitched throughout the entire
game, totaling 77 pitches with
an ERA of 2.33.
A three-run loss to a 6A
school is not all bad. In fact, the
Lions proved that they can still
compete with some 5A and 6A
schools, and Thursday’s match
up proved that they could even
beat some.
On Thursday, March 24, Cot-
tage Grove came out of the dug-
out ready to be taken as a serious
competitor. In the top of the fi rst,
the Lions came out with a four-
run rally, stunning Springfi eld’s
defense. However, the Millers
attempted to answer back with
two runs against pitcher Jaydin
Osban. After two runs, Geiszler
and Osban seemed to agree that
it wasn’t Osban’s time and put
TJ Bellamy on the mound in-
stead.
Bellamy began to heat up,
closing the fi rst inning and al-
lowing no scores until the bot-
tom of the fourth, where Spring-
fi eld tied the game at fi ve.
However, key hits by TJ Bel-
lamy, Hunter Harris and sopho-
more Madison Cox kept the bat-
ting momentum up. This brought
in freshman Wyatt Sayles and a
few others in the fi fth and sixth
innings. The RBIs gave a 9-6
lead to Cottage Grove, and Har-
ris then closed the game with a
few fi erce pitches in the sixth
inning.
The rest of the tournament
was a struggle as the Lions
barely slipped against South-
ridge (a 6A school), losing 6-5.
The team’s batting average was
.280, and then came an unfortu-
nate 10-0 loss against Summit
(a team that reached the fi nals
in last year's 5A class). But
Geiszler sees improvements as
games go on.
"We're swinging the bat well
and pitching very well," he said.
As for some errors throughout
the tournament, the head coach
knows the team will be able to
clean up its game. "We're play-
ing really good baseball, we just
need to fi x a few things on the
fi eld."
Slabtown spring practice
competition shows great
display in strength and power
The friendly competition gives good insight to where local athletes
stand in their olympic weightlifting
BY KACE ALLEN
For the Sentinel
Olympic Weightlifters gath-
ered at the Armory building
in downtown Cottage Grove
for the fi rst ever “Slabtown”
Spring Practice Competition.
The Olympic lifts comprise of
the “snatch” and the “clean and
jerk”. Both lifts require strength,
coordination and fl exibility. Top
athletes spend a lifetime per-
fecting their technique.
This competition brought
out 15 women and seven men
weightlifters. Athletes got three
attempts at each lift. The lift-
ing started with snatches of 45
and 55 pounds by Alicia Bent-
ley and Maryanne Miller. After
a few lifts, a battle broke out
among the women, with eight
of them successfully snatching
65 pounds, then seven of them
at 75 pounds and three athletes
lifting 80 pounds. When the
dust from that skirmish settled,
that left Chelsea Williams and
Dom Guzman both successful
at 90 pounds, Mandie Fleming
standing at 95 pounds and Chel-
sea Miller at 105 pounds.
Then heavy lifters Jamie De-
Hart and Robin Brougher be-
gan. DeHart looked solid in her
opening attempt at 125 pounds,
but she brought the barbell
down early, resulting in a “no-
lift”. Even so, she opted to in-
crease her weight to 130 pounds
for her second attempt, and she
completed that snatch success-
fully. Brougher opened with a
successful lift of 136 pounds,
taking the overall lead for the
women. For her third and fi nal
attempt, DeHart selected 140
pounds for the lead but could
not get under the bar. Brougher
went on to successful snatches
of 146 pounds and 155 pounds
for the overall lead among the
women heading into the “clean
and jerk” session.
While the women were slug-
ging it out, the men also began
lifting. Dereck Bentley and Nate
Fleming opened with snatches
of 95 pounds. They both worked
their way up in weight, and Ray
Yager joined them once the bar-
bell reached 135 pounds. Mike
Hoagland opened at 145 pounds,
and Brian Huynh joined them at
160 pounds, which took two of
his three attempts to succeed.
Yager took the lead momentari-
ly with a snatch of 170 pounds,
which Huynh tried and failed to
match.
That was when heavy hitters
Brandon Glissmeyer and Keifer
McInvale got started. Gliss-
meyer opened with a success-
ful snatch of 195 pounds, and
McInvale followed him with
a snatch of 202 pounds. Gliss-
meyer selected 210 pounds for
his second attempt but missed.
Not to be denied, he used his
third attempt to successfully
snatch 210 pounds for the over-
all lead. McInvale would have
none of that, and for his sec-
ond attempt he snatched 220
pounds. For his fi nal attempt,
he lifted 235 pounds, taking the
lead as the competition took a
10-minute break before starting
the clean-and-jerk.
When competition resumed
with the clean-and-jerk, Miller
and Alicia Bentley got things
started with 75 pounds each. As
they reached 85 pounds, they
were joined by Carol Bridgens
and Courtney Massa. Bridgens
topped out at 100 pounds, and
Massa completed her third lift at
106 pounds. Tarissa Richardson,
Chelsea Williams and Saman-
tha Wagner each successfully
lifted 115, then Mandie Flem-
ing and Lindsey Evans fi nished
their day with successful lifts of
116 pounds. Kat Alvarez joined
the fray and lifted 120 pounds.
Chancey Davis and Chelsea
Miller then momentarily shared
the lead at 125 pounds, and
Miller still had one lift to go.
Dom Guzman was successful
at 130 pounds, Miller success-
fully lifted 135 pounds on her
fi nal attempt, and Wagner then
attempted 136 pounds, but she
couldn’t fi nish. Guzman at-
tempted but couldn’t lift 142
pounds.
DeHart opened her clean and
jerk at 160 pounds, but her fi rst
attempt failed. She lifted that
weight successfully on her sec-
ond attempt and went for 170
pounds on her fi nal attempt. She
didn’t succeed at 170 pounds,
and that left Brougher with her
fi rst attempt at 190 pounds. Af-
ter lifting 190 pounds, Brougher
was successful at 200 pounds
and then at 205 pounds.
Meanwhile, the men joined
in with Dereck Bentley’s fi rst
clean-and-jerk at 95 pounds.
Nate Fleming started when the
barbell reached 135 pounds,
and Mike Hoagland joined at
145 pounds. The three of them
battled it out until Hoagland
was the last one standing with a
successful lift at 195 pounds.
Brian Huynh was the fi rst
of the men to clean-and-jerk
over 200 with an opener of 205
pounds, then successfully lifted
210 pounds on his second at-
tempt and was unable to lift 215
pounds for his third and fi nal
attempt. Ray Yager opened his
clean-and-jump at 225 pounds
successfully, and Brandon Gliss-
meyer started with 245 pounds.
Yager missed an attempt at 250
pounds, but he was successful
with that weight on his third and
fi nal attempt.
Keifer McInvale started with
a good clean-and-jerk of 253
pounds. For his second lift,
Glissmeyer successfully com-
pleted 255 pounds, which Mc-
Invale answered with a good
lift at 265 pounds. Glissmeyer
then beat that lift by one pound,
succeeding with 266 pounds for
his third and fi nal lift. With ev-
eryone else having used all their
lifts, McInvale opted to make
his fi nal clean and jerk attempt
at 275 pounds and missed.
Photo by Sam Wright
Robin Brougher takes the lead with her 136-pound snatch lift. She lifted 155
pounds for the lead in the event.
Athletes of the Week
Bowling team earns accolades
Left to Right: Coach Ernie Owen, Chance Arnold (Most Improved Bowler), Josh Al-
len, Nikki Allen, Jessy Thomason, Olivia Perkins (Most Inspirational Bowler), Jaydyn
Arnold, Skyler Arnold (Most Valuable Bowler) Melissa Miller (Third Place All Star
Bowler), Jared Simmons, Josh Stewart, Coach Kevin Carver, Coach Zach Thomason
and Coach Vince Fiattarone